Love Is Not Enough
by SpellCleaver
Summary: A series of oneshots - both AU and canon compliant - exploring the dysfunctional Skywalker family, and the rifts and bridges and elephants in the room between them.
1. Misbegots

**This is a new story idea I had, and is basically a bunch of oneshots exploring the Skywalker family, both when their being functional, and when they're. . . not.**

 **Mainly not. Hence the title.**

 **Most of the chapters won't be anywhere near as long as this one. I don't even know what the backstory behind this is, I know it's entirely implausible in the universe, but the backstory isn't really important. I just wanted to write Rey meeting the Skywalkers - _all_ of the Skywalkers - and so that's what I did.**

 **And no, "Misbegots" technically isn't a word. Yes, I'm using it as a chapter title anyway.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Rey was already fidgeting in the co-pilot's seat when Luke pulled them out of hyperspace, and the grey surface of the planet materialised into existence beyond the viewport. His shoulders were just as tense, and perhaps that should've been her first warning. Luke was always excited whenever he talked about visiting family.

She'd known him for five years - since she was eight, and he'd crash landed on Jakku and run into her - and that was the very first thing anyone ever learned about him: Luke Skywalker loved his family.

That he should be anxious now never boded well.

He was speaking into the comlink now, after a surreptitious glance at her. She caught it, and held it even as he spoke. "We're just coming in for landing, Leia. . . No, I'm not planning on letting that happen. . . I flew well enough to blow up the Death Star! Have a little faith!"

Rey heard the ghost of a woman's laugher echo over the comlink, then static as the person on the other end cut off. Luke glanced over at her. "You ready, sunshine?"

The nickname was one he'd given her in the first year of their acquaintance, saying they were children of the desert, and that he was lucky he hadn't nicknamed her "sandy". In all honesty, she liked the name.

She took a deep breath, suddenly more nervous than excited. Maybe it was intuition, maybe it was that Force Rey was almost convinced Luke wasn't making up, but she had an intense feeling of foreboding.

An intense feeling that this meeting wouldn't be what she expected.

She tried to smile. "As I'll ever be."

 **.**

Things started seeming a little bit off from pretty much the moment Luke's relatives opened the door, to be honest.

Apparently they were staying on this particular planet only temporarily, as half the time Leia Organa - someone who Rey now realised she had no idea about her relation to Luke, besides old legends and stories whispered on Jakku and by Luke himself - was needed on Hosnian Prime. Apparently them staying in this hotel was the prearranged meeting point for the so called "family gathering" to take place, because it was accessible to everyone relatively easily.

Rey thought she heard Luke mutter something about _exile_ , but she had no idea what it meant, so she filed it to be puzzled over at a later date.

The door to the hotel suite was opened by a sulky-looking young man, somewhere in his early twenties, with dark hair and an eerie-looking mask clutched in his right hand. Rey saw Luke noticed this at the same time she did, and he didn't bother to try and hide his eye roll, but _did_ smile somewhat genuinely at the younger man as he greeted, "Hello, Ben."

Ben muttered something which may have been a hello, then slunk away just as loud footsteps rattled against the floor behind him, though not without giving Rey a deeply suspicious glare. She got the sense he was, quite frankly, an overgrown brat.

"Ben, say hello to your uncle, don't be rude," chastised a female voice that was vaguely familiar to Rey from years of glitchy recordings on the holonet and having rung out of the comlink just a few minutes before. The woman who came into view wore fairly simple attire, with a single elaborate ring on one finger, and had greying brown hair braided over the crown of her head. General Organa - because of course that's who she was - smiled brightly at Luke, and then down at Rey. "You must be Rey! I've heard so much about you. Come in."

She opened the door wider and stood aside to let them pass. Luke went first, and Rey was half a step behind him so she heard it clear as day when General Organa commented wryly to Luke, "Took you long enough to get here."

Luke tossed her a wry grin of his own. "Not everyone pilots ships that can make the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs."

" _Twelve!_ " an affronted voice from further inside shouted. Luke's face seemed to split in two with the force of his smile, and with a quick squeeze of the General's shoulder he slipped past her into the hotel room.

Rey followed suit, and found herself exchanging stiff greetings with the General as she sidled past; the woman seemed determined to be as warm and kind as possible, and most of Rey relaxed in the presence of that kindness, but there was still that part of her screaming that _This is the woman you always looked up to on the holonet_ and _She is a war hero and a politician and above you in every way_ , making her eyes slightly downcast and her voice quiet as she said, "It's nice to meet you, General Organa."

The woman's lips pursed momentarily, and for a panicked moment Rey thought she'd read her mind - Force knew Luke had accidentally done it often enough before he'd taught her how to shield - but the expression soon softened into a smile. "Please, sweetheart, call me Leia."

Call a galactic heroine by their first name. Call _one of her heroes_ by their _first_ _name_ -

"You call Luke by his first name, don't you?"

Rey's eyes flashed up to the General's - Leia's. _Kriff, I must've forgotten to shield_. "Yes, ma'am."

Perhaps the honorific was a mistake, but the tension in Rey's shoulder unwound itself as Leia crinkled her nose in an expression of disgust that looked incredibly similar to Luke's. And Luke just screamed _approachable_ so the familiar expression on such an _unapproachable_ figure made her relax significantly. "Please, no," Leia laughed. "I get enough of that in the Senate - Evaan occasionally says it nowadays just to annoy me. We're family now, aren't we?"

Rey wondered if the hitch in her breathing was obvious as her heart stuttered at the word. _Family_.

She had a _family_.

"I suppose we are, Leia," she smiled, and a warm feeling sank in her gut as Leia smiled back.

"Well then, you've met Ben, and I'm sure Luke and Han have had sufficient time to rant at each other by now," the woman said. "Let's not linger in the entryway any longer; you've still got everyone else to meet!"

 **.**

In what seemed to act as some sort of living room, it appeared that Luke and who Rey assumed Han was _hadn't_ finished their enthusiastic rant at each other, even as Luke gesticulated particularly wildly with his hands and smacked the Wookiee sitting next to him by accident. "Sorry, Chewie," Rey's adoptive father said, patting the Wookiee on the arm. Chewie roared his forgiveness in Shyriiwook.

Han's languid posture seemed to straighten minutely as he looked away from his friends, fighting a smile, and at Leia. Leia raised an eyebrow, and tilted her head at Rey, who fidgeted under the man's sudden gaze.

"You're Rey, right?" he asked, frowning slightly, like the words had come out slightly wrong.

Rey straightened her back at them nonetheless, and that deep-level sarcastic scorn that she knew was buried deep down reared its head. "Well, I didn't think Luke had adopted two daughters," she snapped in reply, only for a blush to consume her face when he raised an eyebrow.

He didn't get angry, though - not in the way Unkar Plutt would. Instead, he burst out laughing. "Nice to meet you, kid." He grinned - this family seemed to be grins all round. "I'm Han Solo."

Han Solo.

 _Han Solo_.

"Han Solo? The smuggler?" she said, before she could stop herself, an intense excitement dampening down her earlier irritation. Luke's words from when they'd stepped in the door suddenly made sense. "The one who made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs?"

"See?" Han gestured at her but he wasn't talking to her; he was glaring daggers at Luke. " _Twelve_. If she knows the correct number, shouldn't you? The _Falcon_ has saved your life enough times, hasn't she?"

Luke merely smiled that fond but annoyingly cryptic smile of his, and went back to whatever conversation he'd been having with Chewie.

"So, where're you from to've heard of me as a smuggler before a general?" Han asked Rey, who froze. General as well?

"I'm from Jakku. The spacers who visited Unkar Plutt's junkyard would occasionally mention stories about you."

"Unkar Plutt?" Han grimaced. "I hate that guy. A right-"

"Language," said Leia from across the room.

"Sorry. Either way, he's a piece of work. You talk to him often?"

She barely managed to nod. "I worked in the junkyard. My family left me with him on Jakku when I was small."

He froze at that, and his gaze ran right the way over her, from the sun-bleached beige robes to the desert tan to the way she sat on the edge of her seat, like she was ready to bolt at a moment's notice. The way her weight was automatically titled to the left, to make up for the staff she usually carried on her right - Luke had said they wouldn't mind her carrying it inside, but she'd chosen to leave it in the ship anyway.

Finally, he said, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Must've been a rough life." He paused, then added, "My family wasn't the best, either - it doesn't matter. You keep moving, right? I bet you got off that planet the first chance you could."

For some reason, that comment riled her up far more than Han intended it to. It brought her back to when Luke had first asked her, years ago, during that first meeting, whether or not she wanted to leave the planet with him.

 _I'm waiting for my family_ , she'd informed him haughtily. _They'll be back_.

He'd smiled, said goodbye, promised to visit, and left.

He made sure she always knew the offer to take her off-planet still stood, but never pushed it again, on none of the many visits he'd made. She'd always gotten the sense that he understood what it was like to have that sort of faith, and he didn't want to be the one to tell her it was unfounded.

In the end, that had been what convinced her to leave. That Luke, who had no obligation towards her, returned time and time again to visit, that he _always came back_ , and her parents, who were _responsible_ for her. . . didn't.

She'd thought the wound left from ripping herself away from Jakku had scabbed over - and perhaps it had. But Han's words just opened it anew,

"I'm a pilot." Her voice was hard. "I learned how to fly in the simulators in the junkyard. If I'd wanted to leave, I could have. I was waiting for my family to come back."

Han's shock made her even angrier. "You never gave up on them? After they left you?"

"They're my family," she bit out, shoving herself to her feet. "Of course I didn't. That's what loyalty _is._ "

She didn't look to see the apology on Han's face, the mortification on Leia's, nor the concern on Luke's. She didn't hear the hissed admonition of "Han!" the General gave. She was gone too soon.

 **.**

"You must be Rey," said a warm but unfamiliar voice.

Rey looked up as the door creaked open, letting in a bar of light that fell across the bedsheets. After she'd shouted at Han, she'd stormed down the corridor of the suite - it was _much_ larger than she'd originally thought - and blindly fumbled for the first door she could see through her tears. It had turned out to be an unused bedroom, presumably meant for her or Luke, and she'd flung herself onto the bed and sobbed.

She hadn't cried yet - hadn't _let_ herself cry yet, wouldn't upset Luke like that - but she did now.

Because she'd _given up_.

Even if her family did come back ( _they're never coming back, they're never coming back, they're_ never coming back _)_ it wouldn't matter now because _she'd given up_.

She hated herself for her lack of faith, for her weakness. She was a terrible daughter.

 _I gave up_.

She'd lain there for a while, ignoring the muffled shouted argument she could distantly hear coming from the living room, and just let herself cry.

Now, she hastily scrubbed at her face with the edge of her robes as a woman, who looked to be about seventy years old but with a youthful vigour that seemed to spit in Time's face, peered through the crack in the door. Her hair was pulled back from her face in an elaborate hairdo, and Rey could see she must have been a very beautiful woman when she was younger.

"Who are you?" Rey croaked, her eyes and voice puffy from tears.

The woman seemed to take it as permission to come in; she stepped through the door and closed it behind her, flicked the light switch, then perched on the edge of the bed. "I'm Padmé Naberrie - Luke's mother," she replied. "I understand you were raised on Jakku?"

Rey nodded mutely, then a thought hit her. "I thought Luke said he was raised by his aunt and uncle? That they were-" She swallowed as she thought of the pain in his eyes, and the way he'd stared at the horizon like he could see the homestead burning before his very eyes.

Padmé's mouth quirked sideways in a sad smile. "Owen Lars was my husband's step-brother - Beru was his wife. I only met them once, but I know they must have been wonderful people to have raised Luke - to whom they had no obligation - at all, let alone teach him to be the wonderful man he is today."

And there was that word again. _Obligation_.

Parents ignoring their obligation and strangers fulfilling it for them.

"You didn't raise him?"

Padmé shook her head. "I was- very ill, shortly after his birth. I had to go to my own family to recuperate, and I was nowhere near capable of looking after two children. They were separated - for their own safety; it was during the reign of the Emperor, and they were two powerful Force-sensitives - so Luke was raised by his father's remaining family, while Leia was adopted by a friend of mine."

"Leia?" Rey hiccupped the word, but her tears were starting to run dry now.

"Yes. Leia and Luke are twins," Padmé told her. "They don't look it, I know, but. . . Luke looks like Anakin, and I like to think Leia looks a bit like me, don't you think?"

Rey looked at Padmé, at the silver hair that must've once been brown, at the shape of eyes and their rich colour, at the purse of her lips and the swoop of her eyebrows. "Yes," she admitted. "You do."

Leia looked _very much_ like her mother.

Whereas Rey could no longer remember her mother's face, and never would - not now that _she'd given up_.

The thought brought a fresh onslaught of tears, along with a hollow loneliness that could only be felt by someone with no roots, and nothing to return to should she look back.

She didn't realise she'd started sobbing again until she felt Padmé's hand on her shoulder, rubbing in gentle, soothing circles. Rey had a bizarre thought: for someone who'd lost her chance to be a mother, Padmé was extremely good at it.

"There, now," the woman murmured. "What's wrong?"

"My family." Rey choked on the words. "They never came back. I was waiting for them to come back. And now- I've _given up_. I'll never see them again. And I-" She took a breath. "When they come back, won't they see that I'm not there, and see what a faithless daughter I am? What an awful person? _I'll never see them again_ ," she whispered. "And _it's my fault_."

Padmé was silent for a moment, then she stopped rubbing Rey's shoulder, and folded the younger girl into an embrace instead. "You will feel that way for the rest of your life," she said. "And you will always wonder what would have happened if you'd stayed. So I will tell you: You would have stayed on that planet, until someone made you leave, or you would have wasted away there.

"Rey, look at me." She pulled away and took Rey's chin in her hand. "Deep down, you already know the truth. That whoever left you on Jakku," Rey's eyes were leaking tears again, "they are never coming back."

"Luke did," Rey whispered. "That was what inspired me to leave - _Luke kept coming back_. So why couldn't they?"

"I can't answer that for you," Padmé told her. "No one can. And maybe you will never know. The truth is hard," her voice seemed to grow stronger at that, "but sometimes, it's what you need to hear."

"How did you know that's what I needed to hear?" Rey asked, despite herself. She was curious - curious about this strong woman, and desperate to chase away the memories of her mother's blurry face above her, of her father's hands lifting her to the sky- "How do you know exactly what to say?"

Padmé's smile turned more mischievous. "I was the Queen and Senator of Naboo respectively during the days of the Old Republic. Talking to people was my job. I _know_ when people need to hear the truth." She paused, then added, "Even when it seems so astronomical that no one believes it."

There was a flicker of sound in Rey's mind - despite the fact that she was shielding heavily, as was, no doubt, Padmé, she could've sworn she heard a desperate plea of ages past. _There is still good in him_.

But it was gone too soon for her to examine it.

"Are you feeling up to meeting any more of us?" Padmé asked, getting to her feet and holding out a hand. "I know my husband, for one, would be thrilled to meet you - Leia won't let him anywhere near Ben, but he's on good terms with Luke, and has heard a lot about you."

Rey looked at the proffered hand for a moment before she took it.

 **.**

Padmé led her further down the corridor to where Anakin Skywalker had apparently been banished by his daughter. Rey decided not to ask about _that_ particular story, and instead just followed the woman out of the room.

The grumpy man from earlier - Ben - seemed to have taken refuge amongst the bedrooms as well. He sidled out of his own door just as Padmé passed by, and despite the fact that she was shorter than he was, he was quite fast enough to duck the hand that ruffled his hair. "Hello, Ben," Padmé greeted fondly. "I don't suppose you and Rey have been properly introduced?"

Ben eyed her suspiciously, and Rey decided she didn't want to know him anymore than he wanted to know her. Nevertheless, she didn't want to disappoint Padmé, so she stuck out her hand. "I'm Rey."

"Rey?" he scoffed, even as he shook her hand briefly and let go like it was covered in slime. "Don't you have a last name?"

That one hit deep, just as he must've known it would; she narrowed her eyes at him. "No," she bit out curtly. "I don't, Ben Solo. Not all of us are born into famous bloodlines, with families who love us."

He just sneered at that, and stalked back down the corridor. Padmé watched him go with a sigh. "He's very. . . independent," she apologised. "Doesn't like his family, doesn't like new people, seems to like barely anyone, really. It's a shame; he was such a sweet boy when he was younger."

Rey just nodded along idly. She didn't like Ben Solo, and got the sense she never would. "Shall we go meet your husband, then - Anakin?"

Padmé gave a little jerk, like she'd just remembered, then she smiled, and nodded. "Of course. Right this way."

Two doors down (idly, Rey wondered why they had so many doors; surely there weren't this many people staying over?!) Padmé knocked softly, and a hoarse "Come in," had her pushing the door open and leading Rey through.

The man who looked up from whatever he was fiddling with in his lap _did_ have certain similarities to Luke - the shape of the mouth, the cleft in his chin, the fierce blue of the eyes - but it was his differences she noticed first: Namely, the height and build of him, his baldness, and the sharpness of his facial structure. Not to mention the pasty skin visible beneath the transparent breathing mask that covered the bottom half of his face.

The man - Anakin - smiled at Padmé with such intensity Rey wanted to look away, like she was intruding on a private moment. Then those eyes moved onto her, and she found herself the subject of a smile nearly as warm. "I'm guessing you're Rey?" he said. She might have snapped at him, as she had at Han, but she was feeling strangely exhausted by al the crying she'd done. "My son's told me so much about you; it's nice to finally meet."

Padmé cleared her throat slightly, and he glanced at her, then glanced back at Rey, eyes wide. "Oh - right - sorry." He hastily dropped what it was his was fiddling with in his lap - screws and other spare parts, Rey noted; Luke's father indeed - and offered her his right hand. "I'm Anakin Skywalker - Luke's my son."

"I know." She thought that might have come off as rude, and both Anakin and Padmé seemed so nice, so she hastened to add: "Padmé mentioned it. I don't actually know anything else about anyone here; Luke didn't talk about his current family much." If it hurt to hear the subtle reference to Luke's parentless childhood, they didn't show it. "I have no idea how everyone's even related to each other."

Padmé frowned, but Anakin jumped in. "Luke and Leia are twins, mine and Padmé's children. Han is married to Leia, and Ben is their son. Chewie is Han's co-pilot and best friend - Ben's godfather, I believe."

Rey creased her brows briefly, then nodded. "Then. . . Padmé mentioned something about you and Leia being on poor terms? Why is that?"

She regretted the question the moment it came out. Padmé paled, and shifted nervously on her feet, and Anakin gave a bitter laugh that quickly turned into a coughing fit. It was he who said, "There is some. . . bad blood. . . between us. We met before we knew we were father and daughter - I never knew my children had survived until they were twenty years old. I never knew Padmé had survived either."

 _Survived what?_ Rey wondered. She didn't voice the question aloud, though; she'd ask Luke later. She seemed to have brought up enough sensitive topics among these people as it was.

Anakin was still talking. "And. . . well." He chuckled bitterly again. "Leia wasn't exactly fond of Dar-"

"Ani," Padmé said, and there was warning in her voice. Rey blinked at the weighted stares the couple were exchanging; her skin crawled in a way that told her she'd just lost a vital piece of information that would help her make sense of this strange, strange family. "We needn't go into that." _Let Luke do it_ , her pointed look said. _Let Luke explain_.

Anakin's eyes shuttered, and he folded his hands in his lap. They weren't even fiddling with the spare parts anymore; they were completely still. "As you wish."

 **.**

Rey took to helping Anakin finish repairing the hotel's holoscreen remote, which he'd apparently stood on, broken, and tried to fix. Padmé left them alone to go and "Catch up with my daughter," or something along those lines, and conversation flowed relatively easily between the two of them at first, mainly concerning mechanics and the old, outdated Republic models Rey had occasionally come across in the junkyard.

It wasn't long before there was another knock on the door, and though Anakin tensed initially, the Force presence that was familiar to both of them had him relaxing, his lips tugging into a grin as he called out, "Come in."

Luke slipped in, and offered them both a smile. "Leia sent me to apologise for Han upsetting you," he informed her briefly. He turned to Anakin, "I was just checking you weren't being driven mad in your solitude here, Father, while Mother challenges Chewie to 'who can remember the good old days the best.'"

Anakin tried to look affronted, but he just looked amused, "That, my son, is called this wonderful type of conversation known as 'reminiscing'. I'd expect you to be familiar with it; it's all you ever do whenever those raucous Rebel friends of yours come to call."

Luke shrugged. "Wedge and I have a lot to reminisce about." He looked over at Rey, and his smile turned softer. "You alright, sunshine? If anyone - _any_ of this - gets too much, we can just go. I'll deal with Leia's wrath later."

Rey had to laugh, even as the thought of General Organa being angry didn't seem like a pleasant one. "No, it's fine," she admitted, rubbing the back of her head. "Han just. . . caught me off guard, that's all."

"If you're sure." Luke's gaze fell on the dismantled remote, and smothered a laugh. "Father, try not to reassemble everything in the suite. I'd rather not have to explain to the management staff why all of the holos are suddenly green instead of blue."

"No promises there, I'm afraid."

Luke ducked out of the door, though not without a laugh and a mock salute, which led to Anakin muttering humorously, barely audibly, "The Rebels never taught him proper decorum."

Rey frowned. "Were you not a member of the Rebels then?"

Anakin's hands froze where they fluttered over the remote. ". . .no," he admitted, with some difficulty. "I wasn't." He held the remote up to the light, ostensibly so he could see the inside of it better, but Rey suspected he was trying to avoid meeting her eye. "I fought for the Empire."

"You did?" There was something else here, some secret, but it eluded her.

Anakin shrugged. "Why do you think Leia dislikes me so much?"

 **.**

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Rey made her peace with Han, had an interesting conversation with Chewie, and even got round to listening to Leia talk about what it was like in the Senate.

(Rey understood about half of what she said, but she appreciated it all the same.)

It all came to a head when Rey finally plucked up the courage to ask Ben what the mask he carried was.

Leia froze.

Han froze.

Chewie stopped mid-roar.

Even Luke and Padmé exchanged concerned glances, and gave minute sighs.

Rey had a really bad feeling about this.

Ben puffed up his chest. "It's like my grandfather's mask," he informed her, slightly haughtily, either ignorant to or dismissing his mother's stern commands to _stop_. "Not his current breathing mask, his old one. Darth Vader's."

Darth Vader. His grandfather.

If Anakin was Leia and Luke's father, then-

 _Leia wasn't exactly fond of Dar-_

 _Dar-_

 _Darth Vader_.

She'd just spoken to perhaps the most infamous Sith Lord to ever live.

 _I fought for the Empire._

 _Why do you think Leia dislikes me so much?_

"Ben," Han said, and so began a multi-person tirade that was far too loud and fast for Rey to even hope to keep up with. Ben was shouting, and Padmé was wincing, and Leia and Han looked _furious_ , and Luke was tapping her shoulder and they were slipping away out the door.

"We'll be back in a few hours," he assured her as they boarded the ship again. "We just need them to cool down a bit. Darth Vader is always the elephant in the room in family reunions like this, and Ben's newfound fascination with him doesn't help."

"Darth Vader," Rey said, only half processing what she'd heard, "is your _father_."

Luke's calm belied the tension in his shoulders as he looked at her sideways. "Yes," he said simply. "Or rather - my father was Darth Vader, for a time."

 _He's still alive? He didn't die with the Empire and its Emperor?_ "Anakin - Padmé-"

"They had. . . a tragic love story." The words were heavy, even as Luke lifted the ship off the ground and they shot away. "During the Clone Wars. Before the Empire. Leia and I. . . we were born the day the Empire was created. That's why we were separated."

"To hide you from your father."

"To hide from everyone. The entire galaxy, practically."

"Your family," Rey took a deep breath, "is a _soap opera_."

Luke laughed. "That it is."

And it was. Divisive factions, dark and dangerous pasts, political opinions and misplaced trust had all served to tear them apart. It was as fascinating as it was mind-boggling.

Because. . . despite all that. . . the Skywalkers were still. . . Well, not functional, but _together_. Still met up, and greeted each other, and loved each other, and hated each other, and didn't try to deny the bonds of blood and marriage that tied them into such a storm.

What was it like, to feel such loyalty and know without a doubt that someone felt it in return?

"I'm honoured to be a part of it," she announced decisively.

Luke's shock was palpable, but he grinned soon afterwards, even as the planet curved away beneath them. "So am I."


	2. Sweethearts

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow, LPK9, and Guest for reviewing!  
**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! And I agree that there are a lot of things about TFA that don't make sense, and it hurts my heart that everyone in Leia's life abandoned her at one point, so I try to AU that as much as possible. I love Padmé too - not so much in ROTS, because I feel like she doesn't do much, but I adored her in Episodes I & II. And I love like Anakin that much, but he's a very interesting character for sure. Thanks for your wonderful review!**

 **LPK9: Thank you! I don't like Ben Solo/Kylo Ren that much, so that may have come across a bit, but he was definitely fun to write. And I feel like at this point Anakin's just a sad old man who regrets everything he's done and half his family don't have the heart to hate him for it anymore. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **Guest: Yeah, I tried to give it a backstory that made sense as much as possible, but at the end of the day it was written solely for my own entertainment. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)**

 **This chapter is essentially a character study into Leia's memories, and how she develops over the films.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Leia Skywalker, turned Organa, lost her family twice. This is what she remembers.

The soft scent of the dried flowers hanging over her cradle as a child, the snow-capped peaks of Alderaan's mountains visible through the slats, a soft voice singing a lullaby and the gentle slide of wakefulness into sleep.

(Warmth and blood and newly forming bones and the thrum of her own life beating through her mind, her soul, her very being, and the thrum of someone's life beside her and the vibrations of outside voices running through them both.)

Sunlight glancing through billowing curtains and the affectionate chatter of her aunts as the six-year old twirls in her flowing white dress, watching with young fascination at the way the cloth ripples and drifts. She sits on her mother's knee and tries to listen to the conversation even when the clouds drift through an azure sky just beyond the window.

(Thumping and squeezing and a sudden cold against her face. A baby's cries - two babies' cries - some of them hers, some of them his. Screams and screams and screams, all of them _hers_ , panted words she can never quite make out, murmured words she knows doom him and her to be torn apart from each other, then silence, nothing but overwhelming _silence_.)

The weight of a white blaster in her hand and her staring at it, like if she only looks hard enough it will become something less repulsive. Her father's apologetic face: _I know you don't like it, but you have to stay safe, sweetheart. An Alderaanian doesn't fight when there is another solution, but I don't want to take the risk that there will always be one_. Years later, and the blaster is a natural part of her life, her aim immaculate.

(The sight through someone else's eyes of a planet coated in crawling city life emerging beyond a viewport, and knowing that this is Coruscant - _Imperial Centre_ \- as it once was. As it should be.)

A conversation with her mother over comlink, Breha Organa's still-beautiful face breaking up with interference from the poor signal found in the newest Rebel Base, although the concern and pride over what her husband and daughter are doing to help the galaxy are still evident even for a few moments after Leia switches off the device.

(Blazingly bright sand burning into eyes that aren't hers, the craggy rocks rising out of a Dune Sea, the pieces of a moisture vaporator lying in someone else's lap, their hands busy at work with fixing it. A woman's smiling face, worn rugged by the heat and sun; the stern lines around a brown-haired man's eyes and mouth even as he gives what her witness identifies as a look of pride; a young boy racing a speeder next to hers and laughing with abandon, without fear.)

Fear and pain and pounding hearts and crimson plasma shooting past her ear as she ducks to the side, hearing a scream of a stranger - no, not a stranger, her friend, her comrade, her _fellow Rebel_ \- killed in combat. She reaches out in her mind for her family, and she doesn't understand the soothing presence she feels in response, but she latches onto it anyway, and escapes the situation relatively unharmed.

(The face of a beautiful woman with Leia's hair and Leia's eyes and Leia's nose and Leia's chin frowning, her eyebrows creasing to form a little furrow, and then she lifts her head and begins to speak. She is in the Senate building, and Leia is watching from across the hall through the eyes of another person. Later, she learns that that woman was none other than Padmé Amidala, the Queen and Senator of Naboo.)

Hands knotting together on her first day in Rebel High Command, standing in for her father, scowling at General Madine when he tries to skirt around the more delicate topics because she senses he doesn't think a seventeen year old girl should hear them. A flush of laughter and fury mingling in her chest as she meets the eyes of Mon Mothma and General Rieekan from across the table, and they roll them simultaneously.

(The young boy again - older now, older than her - with Imperial-regulation dark hair and a flight suit on standing in the shadows of sun-bleached buildings and his lips shaping the words _The Rebellion is a long way from here_.)

Her father smiling at her with a sort of weary warmth, and squeezing her shoulder with more than a little concern. _Leia, I need you to do something for me. . ._ Watching him walk away again, and knowing she should get on the _Tantive IV_ and head for Tatooine as he'd asked, but unable to stop herself from staring, perhaps knowing in her heart that she'll never see him again.

(Hearing shots blast her ship and squeezing her eyes shut, remembering a different time, and different event - one that occurred less than a parsec away from where she is now, thirty two years earlier. Blasts rocking the ship, a queen and her handmaidens sitting tense, a captain's terse words _If we don't get those shields fixed we'll be sitting ducks out here!_ It does nothing to help her, but she opens her eyes and moves to record the message anyway.)

Walking up to the imposing figure of the Emperor's right hand man, and coolly stating that _only you could be so bold_. A stray thought slips through her mind: This man is the furthest from her father one could ever hope to meet.

.

There is pain and there is torture and _tell me where the Rebel Base is you know you want to tell me_ and no no _no_ _-_

 _(There are two droids she knows and loves but they are on a desert planet and she doesn't know the young, tanned face she sees reflected in Artoo's optical scanner even if it's so achingly familiar her heart changes beats with it.)_

 _(There is a pain in her head and an old man's face swimming out of the darkness with a smile, and a prayer of_ Ben? Ben Kenobi? _falling from lips that aren't hers.)_

 _(There is a large, upturned vehicle in front of her and the corpses of dozens of small beings swathed in robes scattered at her feet, and the blast shots are all too familiar for her and as the old man speaks a sickening feeling of dread creeps into a stomach that isn't hers and then she's running and running and jumping into a speeder and shooting off into the horizon-)_

 _(There is the coarse feeling of sand and shifting fabric under her knees as she cries, eyes riveted to the scorched skeletons of two beloved figures, stinging from the tears and the billowing smoke emerging from the homestead.)_

 _(There is no choice, she has to leave now, Ben will protect her, Ben will teach her to become a Jedi like her father was-)_

 _(There is a dark cantina and a death threat and a Wookiee and a man whose ship is a piece of junk but it can make point five past light speed and it's got it where it counts, kid.)_

There is a stormtrooper escorting her to the control room to the Death Star, and there is a repulsive Grand Moff there to greet her.

There is a fire inside her, then an anguish, then an emptiness because Alderaan is gone gone gone _where has Alderaan gone_ -

 _(There is the sight of a space station hangar growing irrevocably closer and a phrase slips her mouth:_ I have a very bad feeling about this _.)_

There is a boy claiming to be called Luke Skywalker with a face that looks a lot like one she should recognise but she latches onto the word _Kenobi_ and then she is free.

.

Ice and snow on Hoth remind her of the mountain tops of Alderaan and maybe she fights with Han Solo just to try to forget about that.

Luke is missing and her heartbeat slows when she realises it, like it's trying to mimic his in a snowstorm. Like he has something to do with the thumping she something hears late at night, from when she was small and innocent and nothing had yet gone wrong.

Vader wants Luke and has taken Han, and she hates him she hates him she _hates him_ why can't he leave her loved ones _alone_ -

Luke is hanging under Cloud City and she doesn't know how he got there but she's not going to let the Sith Lord take another person from her. She has lost too many already.

Han is right in front of her, leaning against her shoulder, temporarily blind but free from the carbonite, and she feels nothing but elation. It quickly disappears.

Luke and Han are about to be thrown to the sarlacc and she thinks that maybe she hates Jabba the Hutt even more than she hates Vader.

When they get safe, she watches Luke fly off all over again.

 **.**

 _Leave this place._

Luke is her brother and Vader is her father and they're going to meet in a few minutes, on this very moon, and one of them might die when they do. She lost her biological family once; Vader can disappear now, for all he is to her, but she will not lose Luke again.

(The feeling of two supernovas against her newly-forming mind, one that murmured _brother_ and one that murmured _father_ ; two feelings that she's shielded against for so long that she barely remembers feeling them at all.)

Bail and Breha Organa were and still are her parents, and they are dead, and she will always miss them but they did not die in vain.

(A mother's face - Padmé Amidala's face - looking at her. This is no one's memory, not even hers; rather, an impression she never got to receive. The smile her mother gives her is sad, and she is beautiful. _She was very beautiful. . . But very sad._ )

Chewie and Lando and Wedge and all of the Rebellion are her friends. Her cousins. She knows them as well as she once knew her aunts back on Alderaan.

(A cooing call of _Leia_ from inside the house and the feeling of dirt under her palms as she digs in the flower patch. A scream of horror when her aunts see what it's done to her pristine white dress.)

Two families lost and another family gained, she thinks as she looks around the Ewok village. And they all deserve a happy ending.

 **.**

The destruction of the Death Star can be seen in the skies of the forest moon of Endor. A smattering of cheering breaks out, but she has thoughts for one person, and Han seems to read her mind.

"I'm sure Luke wasn't one that thing when it blew," he said cautiously.

She smiles. She is not naïve enough to think this is the end, but it feels like it. It feels like it might finally be.

And she takes immense joy from being able to say with abject certainty: "He wasn't."


	3. Sunshines

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and Reality Rejection Service for reviewing!**

 **Reality Rejection Service: I reused Maz's lines because I think it's really what Rey needed to hear on that moment, and if Maz wasn't there, then who better to say it than Padmé? And the Skywalkers are definitely a soap opera; they're always so much fun to write :)**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I decided very early on when writing that I wasn't going to write about TFA, because I wasn't in the mood to cry as much as I would if I did. I love Leia so much, and it just hurts to think about that. I'm glad you liked the ending - that moment in ROTJ is one of favourites.**

 **This is a companion piece to the previous chapter, from Luke's POV.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Luke Skywalker, who was never called anything else, lost his family twice. This is what he remembers of them.

A child's daydream of a father to be proud of, of ships streaking through the stars, of laughter and joy once the dead return. _It's okay, Luke, I was lost for so long, but I'm back now and we'll be happy together. You'll see._

(White curtains fluttering in the corner of his vision and the image of a young girl with braided hair in the mirror, but that's not right because the homestead is underground they don't _have_ curtains and who's that little girl anyway?)

Uncle Owen telling him that he's too young to help with the vaporators, that he'll get lost or hurt or sunburnt or abducted, and Aunt Beru chiming in with a knowing look at his uncle and saying that they love him too much to risk losing him in such a way. He can help around on the farm when he's older; for now, he can play with a T-16 model in the cool homestead in the shade where it's nice and safe.

(Sometimes he steps into a certain room and a certain conversation - _I killed them all_ \- plays in his mind, but he ignores it. It's just heatstroke, he's sure. _They're like animals. And I slaughtered them like animals_.)

He and Biggs sneaking away to Mos Espa on their own one day, and strolling through the streets with perhaps less caution than would be advised. Biggs buying them both snacks and their expressions darkening when they walk past the slave quarters. Luke suddenly finding himself not hungry, and leaving in a hurry.

( _I'm free!_ shouts a child's voice. _That's wonderful, Ani_. In later years, Luke would still understand the incessant urge he receives then to move away from the object of the memories.)

An unmarked grave at the back of the farm, and Aunt Beru whispering that it's his grandmother there, hat she was killed by Tuskens, that he must never ever go out into the desert at night because she and Uncle Owen couldn't bear to lose him in the same way. Luke starting to grow small plants - cacti, other desert-dwelling flora - around the gravestone, and always keeping it clean of sand. He keeps this up until the day he leaves.

( _I wasn't strong enough to save you,_ says a voice he should know. A voice belonging to a man who knelt exactly where he kneels now, speaking to exactly the same grave. _But, I promise. . . I won't fail again_. Luke cannot shake the foreboding that follows him around after he hears the last few words.)

Ben Kenobi walking around Anchorhead one day, and Uncle Owen pointedly steering Luke away before they run into him. Luke jostling to see past his uncle's robes and peer at the man who everyone calls _just a crazy old wizard_ , and for a moment he swears the Old Ben was staring at him before hastily looking away.

(He doesn't think about the other impression he got, of a vaguely irritated, drawled _Why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic life form?_ swiftly followed by a sharp pain and a _You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!_ )

Luke asking his aunt and uncle who his mother was, when he is still young and doesn't understand what topics are taboo and what aren't, 'cause he knows his father was a navigator on a spice freighter but Biggs says you can't have a baby without a mother, so I musta hadda mother, right Uncle Owen? His uncle telling him to be quiet and drink his bantha milk.

(A single dream, swiftly forgotten along with a million others, of a brown-eyed, brown-haired woman in imposing makeup and a regal headdress. Maybe if he'd ever seen her without the makeup, without the headdress, he would have seen the similarities between her nose and his, her eyes and the eyes of that girl he sometimes gets flashes of, but he never saw, so he never did.)

Biggs standing in front of him, freshly returned from the Imperial Academy, and saying that _The Rebellion is a long way from here_.

(Extreme terror, and shots of red and rings of blue and he wants to make it better, he _should_ make it better, so he reaches out with all the positivity he can muster and he hopes it does some good.)

An old wizard - no, _Jedi_ \- a beautiful girl who looks far too familiar, two droids and the promise of adventure, but Uncle Owen needs him, he needs to stay on another season-

( _First step? Spring the trap._ )

A burning homestead and two skeletons left under the sun and a scream that may be his or may be the desert's high keening for her lost children or maybe there is no scream at all.

( _Alderaan. . . Not Alderaan. . ._ )

Old Ben, the droids, and the corpses of Jawas are all that's remaining from the life he lived.

 **.**

Ben is dead, Biggs is dead, and he is alone.

 **.**

Leia speaking to him when he confesses to his nightmares, her soothing words insisting _it's okay to be not okay_.

Han coming out into the snows on Hoth for him, even though it could just kill the smuggler too.

Chewie roaring and hugging him when they're primed to take off into the Battle of Hoth.

Dak and Hobbie and Zev fighting and dying during that same battle. That same conflict. That same war.

The feeling of intense relief as he sees the _Millennium Falcon_ soar out of the hangar and past the blockade.

Wedge shouting _We'll meet you at the rendezvous point!_

Yoda showing moments of rare kindness during his training which, if Luke didn't know any better, he might call affection.

Ben begging him not to go, not to rush to help his friends, because _I don't want to lose you the way I lost Vader_.

The sight of Cloud City emerging on his scopes, and the ironclad determination that seizes him.

 **.**

A burning in his hand - or lack thereof.

( _I hate you!_ )

The feeling of wind rushing past his face.

( _I hate it when he does that._ )

The sight of the blue lightsaber blade falling and falling and falling. . .

( _This weapon is your life_.)

Ben's tired face in front of him. A part of him saying, _I'm sorry, Ben, I didn't Fall, I just. . . fell_ and the rest of him screaming, _Why didn't you tell me?_

( _Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me?_ )

Falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and _falling_. . .

 **.**

He meditates, but the truth is inescapable, and the Force is all too keen to show it.

 _Darth Vader is my father_

(Yellow eyes glaring at him up a hill, across a fiery plain, across time and space and the eons in between.)

 _Darth Vader is my fathe_

(A young man, arrogance in his stance, kneeling before a Chancellor who became an Emperor. He rises.)

 _Darth Vader is my fath_

(An image he knows this time, one he's tried to suppress: A young man charging through a Tusken camp, a mother's corpse left behind in the tent, and a blue blade flashing and slashing and heads rolling. . .)

 _Darth Vader is my fa_

(A woman he knows and yet has forgotten, heavily pregnant, standing in front of a yacht and pleading with the man. _Anakin, please. . . You're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I can't follow_.)

 _Darth Vader is my_

(Two men - one he knows, the other he should - duelling with the sort of hatred that can only be borne of love, and the sparks that their lightsabers spit are only rivalled by the sparks spat by the lava flows burning far, far below.)

 _Darth Vader is_

(Agony, writhing agony, and then a man who is more machine now stands for the first time, and Luke thinks he understands now as he hears the words _Where is Padmé? Is she safe? Is she alright?_ and sees how the response destroys the last remaining shreds of humanity inside the suit.)

 _Darth Vader_

 **.**

 _What is it?_ Leia asks. _Ask me later,_ Luke replies.

 **.**

 _Leave this place._

Luke's entire remaining family is currently on this moon. He will not leave.

What he will do it his utmost to keep his family together, and alive. _Everyone_ in his family. Good and loving and _right_.

When he watches the pyre later that day, he can content himself with knowing that, even if only for a heartbeat, he succeeded.

After all, growing up on Tatooine, a child's daydream of a father to be proud of was everything he ever wanted in the world.

And now he has it.


	4. Legends

**Thanks to LPK9, ILDV, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **LPK9: Thank you! I hope you like this one!**

 **ILDV: I'm glad you're enjoying them!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! Luke is one of my favourite characters in Star Wars (along with Leia, R2, Rey, BB-8. . . I have a lot of favourite characters) because I admire anyone with the sort of fortitude to be good and have the sort of faith he does throughout the films, like Elain Archeron or someone, so I really hoped the oneshot did him justice.** **I hope you like this one, too! :)**

 **This is an AU of the Force Awakens, where Maz and Rey's conversation goes a little differently than in canon, and things change because of that. I don't know whether Maz would actually be able to invoke a Force vision, as all she ever said in the film was "I know the Force" but I'm going off that concept anyway.**

 **Basically, I love Rey and I love Maz, so this was inevitable, really.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, and therefore none of the characters or the world and barely any of the dialogue in this piece.**

* * *

Maz's orange hand was extended to her, that infernal lightsaber resting comfortably in it, and for a moment Rey could swear she felt her hand twitch, like everything in her was urging her to accept the offered burden.

"Give that thing to someone else. I'm no hero."

Despite the lingering threads of horror still clinging to her after that. . . vision. . . Rey couldn't suppress a twinge of guilt when Maz's face flickered with something that might be akin to disappointment.

But Rey had to get home - or to the hollowed out AT-AT she called home. Had to- "I need to get back to Jakku," she repeated from earlier, looking away from the impossibly sympathetic look in the humanoid's eyes. "I've been away too long already."

"The galaxy needs you, Rey," Maz insisted in that calm, focused voice of hers that described the wisdom she'd no doubt accumulated, that made Rey so desperately want to trust her. "General Leia Organa needs you. Your friend who wants to run needs you. Although he will not admit it, even Han Solo needs you." Maz paused for breath, and Rey breathed with her; her chest seemed to have become a vacuum, and her lungs were caving in around it. "You are Luke Skywalker's last hope."

"I-" Rey wasn't even entirely sure what she was going to say, whether she would repeat her _I am no hero_ mantra, insist on returning to Jakku again, or even just gasp for breath, leaving her sentence unfinished. But it didn't matter, because Maz shut her down anyway.

"Dear child," Maz began. For a moment, despite her diminutive height, Rey was struck by just how very _old_ Maz Kanata must be. "I see your eyes. You already know the truth. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead."

Rey had to wonder at that: How had Maz so easily reached into her soul and picked out the deepest, most desperate desire of her heart? Known about those days at the Niima outpost looking around at the scavengers with partners and even groups, who shared food and struggled to survive but enjoyed doing it?

 _Belonging_.

Not even Rey had realised that was the reason she was so desperate for her family to return: she wanted to _belong_.

"I am no Jedi, but I know the Force," Maz went on. "This lightsaber belonged to Luke Skywalker, and his father before him. And now it calls to _you_." When Rey didn't say anything, she coaxed further: "It is your _destiny_."

"I am no hero," Rey repeated dully, and this time it was without the conviction she'd said it with before. Now it was with the dead-eyed despair she'd seen some of the older scavengers bear, the ones who'd spent too long in the desert and watched it suck the life out of them. She needed to see her family again because- because- because then she would be more than that.

More than just a nickname and a threat to others.

"I am a _child_."

It felt strange to say - she'd been living alone for so long, she was more self-sufficient than anyone her age had any right to be - but it was true. She was a random teenager from a backwater planet. Why should this all be _her_ destiny?

"And do you think Han, Luke and Leia weren't all children once themselves?" Maz queried, and at Rey's silence she shook her head. "Leia, perhaps, never got the chance to be young and naïve - she was raised a princess of the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, before it was destroyed. The Last Princess of Alderaan. But Han and Luke, well." Maz took her hand again. "Let me show you."

Now that she was expecting the Force vision, it came gentler, like Maz was trying to ease her into it, rather than shock her the way the last one - the one her hands still hadn't stopped shaking from - had. The walls of Maz's castle dissolved around them in a shimmer of blue - _the same colour as the lightsaber_ , Rey noted absently - and then they were standing in the living area of a ship.

A ship she knew very well.

The _Millennium Falcon_ looked much the same as it had on Rey's flight to Takodana; the wear and tear of the years had clearly eventually given up on the ship that was more scrap than salvageable parts. But one thing different was that Rey was standing opposite two men, one young, one old, both unfamiliar to her.

They both wore the sort of robes she'd expect to see on Jakku or another desert planet, although she noted that the young man's sun-bleached garb seemed much more designed for that than the old man's faded brown relics. The old man was sitting down in apparent exhaustion, the younger one wearing an expression of concern, and Rey tuned into their conversation just soon enough to catch the words ". . .you better get on with your exercises."

The young man conceded, and returned to where he had some sort of remote hovering at head height. He lifted a lightsaber - _the lightsaber I just held_ , she realised - and turned the remote on, where it started to fire bolts at him.

Rey could admit to watching this part of the memory with some curiosity - he was clumsy and inexperienced enough for her to wonder who he was, and why he was wielding that lightsaber in the first place - but she pulled her attention away when a stride she recognised came down the corridor, and Han Solo entered the room.

"Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs, I told you I'd outrun 'em," he said, and took a seat next to the old man. Rey tried not to stare at how _young_ he looked - he was in his mid-thirties at the oldest. So this event happened. . . thirty years ago, maybe?

At the lack of response, Han looked around the room and drawled, "Don't everyone thank me at once."

That didn't garner a response either.

He huffed. "Anyway, we'll be at Alderaan at oh-two-hundred hours."

 _Alderaan. . ._ Was this memory from before that fateful explosion that left the planet a cloud of debris? Or would they reach the place to find it gone? Rey shuddered at the horrors these people didn't know were coming for them - they knew the Empire was evil, apparently, but they clearly didn't quite know the extent of that.

A wail to her left dragged her from her thought and made her turn in shock, to see Chewie there facing against a blue astromech droid - an R2 unit - over a dejarik board. There was some rambling from a protocol droid and Han about why the astromech should "Let the Wookiee win!" before her attention was drawn back to the young man with the lightsaber, who was still facing off against the remote.

The old man chimed in, "Remember: a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."

Rey started; they were _Jedi_?

"You mean it controls your actions?"

"Partially," the old man admitted, "but it also obeys your commands." It was just about then that a stray bolt collided with the young man's leg, and he yelped.

Han snickered. "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Rey had to agree, but. . . Han's attitude was so at odds with what he'd said to her and Finn on the _Falcon_ and the respect in which he clearly held Luke Skywalker, and the Jedi. What was going on here? What had changed?

Thankfully, the "kid" addressed that question himself: "You don't believe in the Force, do you?"

Han's look was sceptical - borderline scornful. Or just outright scornful. "Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, I've seen a lot of strange stuff. But I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything."

 _I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo, a magical power holding together good and evil, the Dark Side and the Light_ , he'd said to them.

"There's no mystical energy field controls _my_ destiny!" The old man was smirking, and Rey wondered what was going through his head even as Han finished, "It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense."

 _Crazy thing is. . . it's true. All of it._

The old man stood up, and removed a helmet from where it was hanging on the wall. "I suggest you try it again, Luke."

Luke. Rey's head whipped to look at the young man again, to take in the long blond hair and the blue eyes that seemed to swallow half his face. _This_ was Luke Skywalker?

(There was something familiar about him as well, something that sang of an island in the middle of more water than Rey had ever seen whilst awake, but she pushed the thought away.)

"This time," the old man went on, placing the helmet onto Luke's head, "let go of your conscious self, and act on instinct."

Luke Skywalker chuckled a little bit, like he thought it was all a joke. "But with the blast shield down, I can't even see anything, how am I supposed to fight?"

"Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them," the old man said simply. Something told Rey that Luke was no more satisfied by that answer than she was, but he tried it anyway, reigniting his lightsaber and stood ready to deflect the bolts. One shot right past the blade and struck him in the shoulder; he gasped in pain, and the old man offered some more sage Jedi advice: "Stretch out with your feelings."

Luke tried again; this time, he deflected three bolts in quick succession of each other, with no apparent effort at all.

"See?" the Jedi said. "You can do it."

"I call it luck," Han objected, though Rey thought there might have been something in his face that suggested otherwise.

"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."

"Look, good against remotes is one thing." Han seemed adamant to get some sort of rise out of the old man. "Good against the living? That's something else." A chiming behind him caught his attention, and he glanced at the monitor. "Looks like we're coming up on Alderaan." He and Chewie left the room, presumably to the cockpit to land.

Luke approached the old man once they'd left, like he was afraid Han might mock his words unless he was out of earshot. "You know, I _did_ feel something. I _could_ almost see the remote,"

"That's good," the Jedi encouraged, placing a hand on Luke's shoulder. "You've taken your first step into a larger world."

At those words, the image dissolved into blue again, and she found herself on her knees in the basement of Maz's castle.

But she didn't care.

 _You've taken your first step into a larger world_ , the words had been. Spoken in the same voice as, _These are your first steps._

Rey shivered as she glanced up at Maz. "Why did you show me that?" she whispered hoarsely.

"Because you did not believe that heroes are made, not born," Maz said. "Han didn't believe in the Force that day Alderaan was destroyed so many years ago; indeed, very few did, but that didn't mean it didn't exist. You can hide and wait on Jakku all you want-" She lifted the lightsaber from where she'd placed it on the floor, and held it out once more, "-but it will not bring you any manner of peace when the First Order come calling again."

Rey eyed the lightsaber with more than a little apprehension, but there was that thing inside of her as well, telling her to _pick it up. Pick it up._

 _Pick it up and discover who you were meant to be_.

She reached out and took the lightsaber.

Maz dropped her hand, smiling faintly. "Do you know where to go from here?"

The weapon was solid in her hand, warm from being held by Maz. Even when deactivated it seemed to hum against her skin. A feeling of warmth, of companionship, flooded her for a moment, and it was so potent she almost staggered back. There was a calling, too - a faint, distant calling across thousands of parsecs and billions of worlds. She felt herself almost subconsciously orient herself to that calling, and looked straight ahead, over Maz's shoulder.

An image of an island shone in her mind, a mirage bright enough to help her sleep at night.

She dropped her arm and clipped the lightsaber to her belt. "I need to find Han," she said. Her voice didn't waver. "And we need to leave this place." She took a deep breath. "I know where Luke Skywalker is."


	5. Daughters

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and ILDV for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I hope you like this one, too!**

 **ILDV: Thank you!**

 **This chapter is mainly Leia-centric, and whilst in some places it might get confusing, as both Breha and P** **admé are referred to as "her mother" or "your mother", I hope I've written in enough context for it to make sense in each instance.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Despite Darth Vader's ardent attempts every waking moment to work and work and work until his sleeps were dark and dreamless, this nightmare was a familiar one. Padmé was panting and screaming, her face coated in a thin sheen of sweat. Vader had watched this reel of events play out so often, for so long, that he barely flinched as he watched it.

It didn't stop his heart from beating faster, or his fists from clenching subconsciously, but he stood, stoic, throughout the scene. Like he was some sort of disgraced actor who'd bombed his part, and was now forced to watch how the scenario crumbled when he wasn't participating, how he'd had a responsibility and _messed it up_ , how-

Wait.

Despite the painful way it pulled at his scars, Vader frowned.

Because that was a baby crying in the background, heretofore unnoticed in his brooding inner monologue, as he focused on the face of his dead wife, scrunched up in agony.

That was a baby crying, and that was Obi-Wan holding the baby, and Padmé was still panting, still keening, but she gasped out "Luke," between her heavy breaths. Obi-Wan brought the child closer to his mother, and she lifted a trembling hand to graze it across his right cheek. "Oh, Luke." She tried for a laugh; it came out as sob.

Then her screams started anew, and for a moment Vader thought his brain was playing the events _again_ , torturing him _further_ , because he'd just _seen_ how his child could've been born, just _watched_ the confirmation that he would've been the father of a healthy baby boy if only he hadn't choked-

Hadn't choked-

The medical droid said something, and Obi-Wan translated it for Padmé's sake. Vader looked on in shock at the baby it cradled in its arms as his old master confirmed, "It's a girl."

"Leia," Padmé got out through gritted teeth, and suddenly there was no ground beneath his feet.

 _Twins_.

He hadn't just killed his child - he'd killed his _children._ They'd had _twins_ -

He wasn't sure what to do with the revelation beyond rave and scream.

Why was the Force punishing him like this? Why not simply kill him, or make his scars and burns more painful, or have the Empire topple to the Rebels that had started to gather on the future's horizon like a Tuskens' camp? Why did it make him sit and watch as his angel died over and over and over again? Why show him what could've happened, had she lived, had he-

Had he not killed her. Had she never come to Mustafar.

But if that fateful encounter at Mustafar had never happened. . . where was he, in this dream? Why was Anakin Skywalker not there with his wife, and why was Obi-Wan Kenobi there instead?

Vader glanced between them, looking for something, _anything_ , that might tell him about this parallel universe. About this alternate galaxy where his wife had lived.

Where his _children_ had lived.

Where _he_ wanted to live.

A cursory glance revealed nothing, except- There was a ring of bruises around Padmé's throat, almost like-

Almost like she'd been Force-choked.

His stopped breathing, like his windpipe had been caught in that death grip itself.

So that was what had happened. He wasn't here, because he'd _already_ killed Padmé on Mustafar, already attacked her-

Except how could he have killed her, if she was still alive, and delivering two babies?

And if she had survived to do so in this universe, then why hadn't she in his own?

(Something was screaming at him - the Force, the Force - telling him that the truth was just beyond his fumbling fingers, that if he would just _think_ -)

He stilled.

Padmé hadn't survived to give birth to their twins in his galaxy.

Unless. . . she had.

 _She was alive. I felt it._

Was this what had actually happened, while he was being poked and prodded by the Emperor's medical droids? Had Padmé actually survived that day? Were she and their children still out there in the galaxy, living and breathing and hiding in fear that one day he'll find them and finish choking the air from their lungs?

The breath he took burned, like hot sand or poisonous fumes, and that heat spread all over his body, like déjà vu from the very day that had now taken on a completely different meaning for him.

His family was alive.

His family was _alive_.

So great was the realisation, that he barely noticed Padmé was talking again. "Obi-Wan," she whispered, her face twisted in a rictus of pain. She had to take several breaths before she had the energy to say what she needed to say - he could tell she was dying.

"There's good in him." Padmé seemed adamant about it, though she lacked the strength to argue her case. Vader squeezed his eyes shut. She'd had _faith_ in him? Even after - even after everything he'd done to her? "I know," she had to take another breath, "I know there's - still. . ."

After the hope he'd had, watching her die felt crueller than any punishment his master could possibly think up.

He was flung out of the dream within moments of his angel's demise, and he woke, his eyelids sliding open to the red-tinted world. The first thing he did was reach for his comlink.

Padmé may have died - died in a different way to what he'd always believed, but still died - but his children may not have. They could still be out there somewhere, living in either blissful ignorance or fear. They would be seventeen by now.

He had lost so much time.

But he would find them.

 _If_ they were still alive. _If_ the dream had been true. _If_ Padmé's appearance of still being pregnant when she was dead was false.

There was only one way to tell.

"Send an agent to inspect the body of former queen and senator, Padmé Amidala, of Naboo. . ."

* * *

Bail Organa closed his eyes, even as he tried to force his shoulders to relax. Not that this particular news wasn't worthy of the tension they'd held, but it would not help him process the information.

"Would you mind repeating that?" he asked his aide, who looked thoroughly bewildered as to why such news had a) been deemed important enough to have Viceroy Organa personally informed of it and b) why it had such a violent effect upon him.

He cleared his throat, and began again, "Lord Vader has recently shown an unusual interest in the late Padmé Amidala, having medics inspect the body, and also interviewing the funeral planners and makeup artists who oversaw the procession and burial. Five of them were taken in for questioning, and only three returned to their jobs, several months later."

Bail rubbed his forehead.

Vader had found out about his children's survival.

He needed to find Leia.

* * *

The Imperial Senate was hardly what Leia had ever expected it to be. When she was young, she'd heard her father's stories about serving in the Galactic Republic with eager ears, and despite being a pragmatic little girl, she'd fantasised about being like that, of standing up in front of thousands to say her piece, of changing the face of the galaxy step by step.

Now that she _was_ a senator, she found herself a little disillusioned with the whole daydream.

For one thing, no one listened, or even cared, when she stood up to speak. Perhaps hearing what planet she was from bought her a scrap of attention, but that was lost easily enough. And that might be because she was a teenage girl, or maybe because simply no one cared anymore.

Why would they?

It's not like the Senate held any power, after all.

The shock of just how _little_ she could do from the podiums had been damning, but she quickly realised how she could use her position to aid her father's. . . allies. . . in other ways. Gathering information to send to the Alliance, for one thing, and lending her diplomatic immunity to various undercover missions on Coruscant. While it wasn't the sort of change she'd dreamed of initiating as a child, it was. . . a start.

She was torn from her musings by the comm alert going off that told her that her father had arrived outside her apartment near the Senate building. She grinned, and threw open the door. "Papa!" She'd never quite grown out of calling him that.

He smiled at her, albeit a bit weakly. Her brow instantly furrowed; she dropped her smile. "What is it?"

He glanced behind himself for a moment, before gesturing behind her. "Maybe we should talk about this inside."

Leia raised her eyebrows, but she trusted her father perhaps more than anyone else in the galaxy, so she stood aside. "You know where the living room is," she said, as she tripled locked the door; Bail Organa was not one prone to needless paranoia. After a moment, she joined him there. "What is it?"

He looked at her, mouth bracketed in tight lines, and clenched his jaw. Then he smoothed down the front of his blazer with quick, fluttering hand motions before beginning, "Leia, it's about-"

There was a sharp rap at the door.

They both tensed up - Bail more than her. She'd never seen her father so scared: his tan face went pale, his eyes widened, and he swallowed several times before regaining his "calm" face. "Leia," he said, "you'd better get that."

She gritted her teeth at the vagueness of his words - of this whole _situation_ \- but she followed his instructions. By the time she'd finished unlocking all the security precautions she'd put in place last time, the impatient person on the other side had already knocked twice more.

Despite the apparent urgency, she was not prepared for the sight when she opened the door onto the white armour of three stormtroopers, and - most distressing (and bemusing) of all - the dark cloak and suit of Darth Vader.

"Princess," the man said, surprisingly cordially, inclining his head in greeting.

She reflexively straightened her back, and fought to keep a glare off her face. "Lord Vader," she greeted, her tone cool and distant. "This is unexpected. What are you doing here?"

The mask was still for an indeterminably long time; Leia resisted the urge to fidget under the Dark Lord's stare (because he _was_ staring, but she didn't know _why_ ), until he said, "You'll have to come with me, Highness. Everything will be explained in due time if you do."

There was something wrong here. There was something _severely_ wrong here. Did he really expect her not to realise that? She didn't think he meant her any harm - and her politician's instincts were rarely wrong - but. . . how foolish did he think she was?

"Thank you, Lord Vader," she said diplomatically. "But I was just leaving for Alderaan with my father." It was a hurried lie, but one that might, with luck, buy them a little time.

Bail had risen to his feet and stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder. A glance up at his face told her he appeared focused - pleasant - but she knew how terrified he was.

And she suspected Vader knew it as well.

The Sith Lord's words were deadly soft when he inquired, "So soon after the Senate has reconvened?"

She swallowed harshly, and itched to clench her fists, when her father said behind her, "I'm afraid she's urgently needed there, Lord Vader. For classified reasons, you understand." It was a blatantly obvious falsehood, but Vader wouldn't act on it. Couldn't - not when both Leia and her father were such major political figures.

Vader nodded. Outwardly, he appeared calm, but something told Leia that he was far from pleased - that he ached to clench his fists, or otherwise show his _irritation_. "Very well, Princess," he said evenly. Leia forced herself to keep looking at him, to not glance over her shoulder, when she heard her father's footsteps retreat for a moment. She was on her own. "I will talk to you when you return."

And that was the downside of their political immunity, wasn't it? Because they would _have_ to return - they couldn't simply resign out of the blue, and not expect eyebrows to be raised.

She settled for a curt jerk of her chin - a barely passable nod. "Indeed." She turned to see Bail Organa return with a small knapsack in his hands. A cursory glance revealed what she could have guessed was in there anyway: necessities for a long trip, a change of clothes, her datapads, her toiletries. Her shoulders relaxed. "Shall we go, then?"

Bail didn't look at Vader as he smiled gently. "Yes." To Vader, "Excuse me, my lord," and then they'd both ducked past the troopers in the hallway, bundled into the speeder, and were shooting through the upper levels of Coruscant.

She left it was several minutes before the tension bled away in to something more like worry.

"Papa?" she asked finally - tentatively. "What is it?"

His grip on the speeder's controls tightened. "Not now, Leia," he warned. "I'll explain once we're in hyperspace."

* * *

Leia rubbed her forehead as her father looked on in worry. The living area of the _Tantive IV_ was deserted save for them. "Are you alright?"

She barked a slightly bitter laugh. "Other than finding out that a mass murderer is my biological sire? I'm great." Sarcasm wasn't becoming of her, she knew, but right now she didn't care.

 _How_ could _Darth Vader_ be her _father_?

Her father was _Bail Organa_ , politician, a kind, selfless man, possibly as far from the monstrosity that was Lord Vader as it was possible to get.

It was hard to imagine Vader ever loving someone, especially as much as her father loved those close to him. Who would have willingly slept with him, borne his child? _Who was my mother?_

She voiced the question aloud, and Bail sighed, but not in a tired way. Like he was remembering something good, upset about the fact it was a memory at all. "Padmé Amidala - born Naberrie - of Naboo. They fell in love when he was still Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and was assigned to protect her from various assassination attempts on her life." She opened her mouth to do something - what, she didn't know: scream, shout, cry? - a thousand questions crowding her mind. _Weren't Jedi forbidden to love?_ _Padmé Amidala the Senator and Queen?_ But her father eclipsed all those by adding, almost as an afterthought, "Your twin brother's name is Luke Skywalker."

There was a _thunk_ as Leia dropped the datapad she'd been cradling in her lap. "Oh," she said faintly. "I have a twin brother now, too."

Bail turned away, but she didn't miss the guilt written on his face as he said, "Yes. We're on the way to Tatooine now, actually, to pick him up. General Kenobi should be briefing him on the situation just as I'm briefing you now."

" _What?_ " Tatooine - she racked her brain for her lessons in Galactic Geography to try and remember. An Outer Rim planet? Controlled by the Hutts? She didn't know. "General Kenobi?" she asked instead. "As in - _Obi-Wan_ Kenobi?"

"He goes by Ben now, I believe."

"He's _alive_?" She sat back in her seat and idly watched the swirl of hyperspace beyond the viewports. "Well then. General Kenobi is alive. My biological sire is alive. My twin brother is alive. Anything else I should be aware of?"

"Vader knows," her father said, any scrap of humour gone.

She sucked in a breath - her lungs had become a vacuum, and her ribcage was crashing in on her. She felt her face drain of colour. "Really?" Not that she hadn't _guessed_ , _especially_ after what had happened outside her apartment, but- but-

"We don't know why, but a few months ago some of the makeup artists and directors who worked on your mother's funeral procession disappeared. A few of them returned to their stations while later, but two didn't. It's almost certain Vader now knows that Padmé Amidala wasn't still pregnant when she died, and had, indeed, delivered twins instead."

Leia sat forward, and took her father's hands to stop them from shaking. "How would he know that I was one of them? There are trillions of seventeen year olds in the galaxy."

He went quiet for a long time at that, before saying, "Leia wasn't a name Breha and I chose. Your biological parents had discussed names before he became evil: Luke for a boy, Leia for a girl. I was well known to be close friends with Padmé - we served as senators together during the Clone Wars, and Naboo and Alderaan have always worked in relative tandem. And. . . you look so much like your mother, Leia." He cleared his throat for a moment; Leia was surprised to see that he had tears in his eyes.

He blinked them away quickly. "Vader is an intelligent man. He must have worked it out."

"You're certain he knows it's me?"

"It's the only explanation for his surprisingly civil behaviour earlier. He didn't want to. . . estrange you further."

"How did my mother die?" The question was sudden, as unexpected by her as it was by him. One moment they were sitting in heavy silence, and the next her mouth was moving. "Was it. . . me and- and Luke?"

"No! No," her father interrupted hurriedly. He took a deep breath. "She'd gone to Mustafar - where Vader was-" she was grateful he didn't say _your father_ , "-to talk some sense back into him. He turned on her, believing she'd gone there to kill him, and Force-choked her into unconsciousness. He betrayed and murdered your mother." His voice was grave - grave, and _angry_. The angriest she'd ever seen her father get, even when she was a little girl and had just severely insulted a Grand Moff's daughter.

"There was no medical reason she was fading away, the droids said. She'd simply lost the will to live." He had to take a deep breath, then, "But I don't believe that. Padmé was the strongest woman I knew - save for your mother, of course - and she had two children who needed her. I've long since suspected that Palpatine had something to do with her. . . _convenient_. . . demise, but I have no idea how he could have done it."

Leia just nodded. Her words had turned to stone, and sunk to the bottom of her throat.

There was a beeping on the monitor moments before Captain Antilles's voice played across the comm: "We're coming up on Tatooine. Preparing for hyperspace reversion."

Bail called out an affirmative, and stood from his seat before looking back at her. "Leia," he said, and if it was possible his voice was even quieter than before. "You have to understand: Lord Vader is the most possessive person in the galaxy. If he believes that you are his child - _his_ \- he will hunt you down until he has you. You and your brother." He swallowed. "And I know there are people in Rebel Command who would _encourage_ you to lead him on a chase like that, to distract him from leading the Imperial Starfleet. I won't endorse such an action, but there are some who will-"

"I won't," she said fiercely - decisively. All of a sudden her words had wings, and she'd be damned if she didn't let them fly. "I am his _daughter_ ," they both flinched at the acknowledgement, but she barrelled on, " _not_ his mother. It is not up to me to make him behave. Nor will I be a pawn in some misguided attempt at retribution. I am needed in the Rebellion." Saying it made her feel stronger - less hopeless. "I _belong_ in the Rebellion."

Bail smiled. It was a sad smile, but she could feel how proud of her he was. "Then let's go meet your brother."

* * *

"How did you survive?" was the question that, years and years later, Leia dreaded asking her brother when he'd returned from the unwilling audience he'd had with the Emperor. She and Han had been so worried about him - he'd been caught on one mission, and considering how far Vader had already proven he was willing to go to Turn his son (cutting off his _hand_!) Leia had been treated to a sick feeling in her chest every time she thought of it.

Even if Luke had been the commander of Rogue Squadron for years by now, and a Jedi (in training) to boot, even if he'd survived thus far, she hadn't thought he could survive this.

But here he was, and when she asked the question, _finally_ , after a night of celebrating the Emperor's death, he'd glanced over her shoulder and responded, "Vader."

At least he had the grace not to call him _Anakin._

Not to call him _our father_.

Nevertheless, the. . . absolution. . . she could feel radiating from him was damning. Combine it with the way he kept smiling at the Force ghost of a tall young man with a scar down the right side of his face, who stood next to the familiar blue form of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and another that might have been a little green troll in life. . .

Well.

It told her everything she needed to know.


	6. Legacies

**Thanks to ILDV and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **ILDV: Thank you!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: I loved exploring that side of Leia, because she _i_ _s_ a politician, and has to know how to spin her words, but in the films usually she's not in a situation she can talk herself out of. And I'm not sure Vader was necessarily misunderstood - Bail Organa wasn't joking when he mentioned how possessive he is - but it's definitely sad that things had to get to that point at all. Hope you like this one!**

 **Honestly, this chapter is just sort of a continuity mess. I'd already written 4500 words of these for another fic idea I had months ago, then abandoned it, and then I rewrote the ending. So in summary, yes I know there's a shit ton of plot holes, yes I know it doesn't make sense, yes I know some characters are OOC. . . I just sort of wrote it? It was fun? I don't even know what I was trying to achieve?**

 **Hope you like it anyway.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Everyone on Tatooine has heard of the Skywalker twins. They are something like legend, except they are very, very real.

Luke is the soft one, the gentle one. He has the face of an angel and a disposition that seems to defy the laws of the planet, where weakness (decency. . .) is stamped out by the desert. She does not approve of it - everyone knows this. Even Luke Skywalker knows this, despite his genuine smiles.

Leia is the hard one, the fierce one. She also has an angel's face, but it is an angel of righteousness, and she will not accept any malicious comment levelled at her or her brother; she will not let it go without challenge; she will not let you walk all over her. She will fight tooth and nail for what she believes is right. She is the desert's favourite child - the one who heeded her lessons, but retained her morality.

Both of them carry the Skywalker legacy with open hands, with shoulders adjusted to bear it dutifully.

Luke recalls their past as slaves through his generosity, his kindness, his acute awareness of the feelings and emotions of every sentient thing. He will not so much as mistreat a droid if they have done nothing to deserve it.

Leia recalls theirs past as slaves through her strength, and her compassion. If such atrocities were happening in the so recent past, then she does not bother to deny that they are happening in the present.

They are very different, but everyone knows they are as close as twins can be, and when working in tandem, their opposition are dead meat.

But that's an exaggeration, surely?

* * *

No one knows where they were born, but there are rumours that they are not quite human. The few slaves living in Mos Espa slave quarters who are old enough to remember two other Skywalkers who lived under the light of the twin suns spread rumours about the late Shmi Skywalker, an otherwise nameless woman in a cautionary tale about the dangers of the Tusken Raiders, and her son Ani, who left Tatooine aged nine and, as far as living memory serves, never returned.

Watto the Toydarian still owns his shop, still buzzes around the city muttering in discontented Huttese, but if he knows anything about the Skywalker twins, he doesn't say.

The really curious ones - mainly children who don't know the twins personally and are too young to remember anything besides the Empire - scan the holonet for anything pertaining to the Skywalker name. But all official articles about Anakin Skywalker were removed from the holonet long ago, mere years after the end of the Clone Wars. Those adults that do remember tales of the Hero With No Fear have the details murky and muddled in their memories, and can tell their children only one thing: He was a Jedi Knight.

 _A Jedi Knight?_ awed children whisper at the stories. Their parents tell them to be quiet, that it is forbidden to speak about the doomed order, and will say no more on the matter. But they themselves wonder just as much as their children.

Luke looks like he was sculpted by the desert, crafted by the desert, born to be here: sandy hair and sunny skin and eyes as blue as the blazing sky. But Leia looks like an outlander, with pale skin and dark eyes and dark hair. She looks nothing like her brother.

Neither of them look anything like the aunt and uncle they were raised with, but that is to be expected - they are not related by blood. They are related by marriage, by adoption. By love.

No one can remember when the speculation about their origins began, nor whom it was by - they only know how unusual it is. Tatooine is a hard planet, and most have no time for worrying about the complexities of other people's lives, no matter how strange. But when those rare moments of pettiness are found, the Skywalkers are always the first topic discussed.

Perhaps it was the twins themselves who started the speculation; it's a well known fact that Luke Skywalker idolises his father, and knows next to nothing about his mother. Leia is the more grounded one, too busy saving the world to waste time on childish fantasies, but Luke is without a doubt the sort to make up fantastical stories when he has none.

Or perhaps what started the speculation was the way that in the marketplace of Mos Espa they're seen to glance at each other across the street and, to all appearances, have an entire conversation without saying a word. The way they both seem to know exactly what the person they were talking to is about to say or do, and react before the person knows themselves. The way that although they wear the clothes of any other moisture farmers, they _stand out_ wherever they walk.

Luke Skywalker is good with ships. He could fly his T-16 after a year better than most adults can after decades. He can know what's wrong with a machine without even taking it apart.

Leia Skywalker has immaculate aim with a laser rifle. She holds the unofficial record for most womprats killed and sold for the bounty ordinance the Imperial prefect passed.

Neither of these things you know by looking at them, but living on Tatooine, it's impossible to _not_ know.

Living on Tatooine, there's no escape.

* * *

"Can you _actually_ talk into each other's minds?" Biggs Darklighter asks Leia Organa when they're nine. They are sitting and watching as Owen Lars teaches his nephew how to work a speeder.

Leia, confident and sure of herself even as a child, smiles. "You'll find we're full of surprises."

* * *

"Who _actually_ was your father?" Camie Marstrap asks Luke Skywalker when they're thirteen. He is on an errand run with his uncle to deliver water to her family for their hydroponics gardens, and she has noticed the wary looks her parents are giving him.

He scoffs. "Anakin Skywalker, I told you. He was a navigator on a spice freighter."

Camie isn't convinced. "Are you sure?"

He doesn't look offended, just irritated, and slightly hurt. "Unless Uncle Owen's lying to me, yes." He takes a breath and she sighs inwardly; she knows what tirade is coming next. "One day I'm going to leave this dusty planet and fly starships around the galaxy myself. I'm asking Uncle Owen if I can apply-"

"Keep dreaming, Wormie," she dismisses. She can see how the nickname hurts him, but ignores it. It's too much of a habit to drop it by now.

Her tone says all she could ever say about the possibility of Luke ever managing to get off Tatooine.

* * *

Legends or not, they have done nothing to deserve their title until their nineteenth year, when everything goes to Hell.

First, Luke Skywalker is at Tosche Station when he insists that he has witnessed a space battle in the skies, and although Biggs Darklighter - three years his senior, and one of the few people on the planet who can honestly say he is friends with one of the twins - insists that the ships are just sitting there, although Camie and Fixer and everyone else in earshot scoff, they secretly wonder if he can see something they can't.

When the dead Jawas turn up a few days later, a few reckless, thoughtless people immediately go, "It's the Skywalkers' fault!" because they are strange, and therefore every strange happenstance must be because of them. They are wrong, but more right than they know.

The rest of the planet either dismisses the rumours as the Tuskens acting up even further than their previous boldness, or doesn't hear.

Then the Lars's family farm is torched, and the skeletons of Owen and Beru are found.

Again, those quick to place judgement shove it on the Skywalkers, before the witnesses who know these things correct them with scorn. The Skywalkers couldn't have done it - there was fire, and there were alarmingly accurate blaster shots, and there were Imperial stormtroopers sighted trekking through the desert.

This was the Empire's doing.

Why it was done, though, no one can say.

Luke and Leia disappear for a while, then reappear. It's said they were sighted leaving Mos Eisley in the company of that wizard Old Ben Kenobi, that reprobate smuggler who's always in trouble with Jabba but is miraculously still alive, and a Wookiee. Two droids are with them - if the rumours are true, they're the two droids the stormtroopers tore the planet apart looking for.

Plenty of people with personal (unwarranted) distaste for the Skywalkers try to point the Imperial forces in their direction. But they are never caught.

One day, they come back. The smuggler drops them off in Mos Eisley, and it's noted that he looks faintly sad to be leaving them behind.

Kenobi is never seen on Tatooine again.

They use their meagre savings to rent a place to stay in Mos Espa, and while Luke gets a job working in a mechanic's shop owned by a Toydarian named Watto, who conveniently seems to have been on Tatooine since before any human can remember, but knows nothing about the twins' bloodline. It can be said that sometimes he forgets that the human working with him is not a slave. Luke (with help from Leia) sets him straight quickly and ruthlessly, with a disgust that only comes from a hyperawareness of his heritage.

He is too valuable an employee for Watto to fire, though.

Leia brings in money bulls-eyeing womprats, as she always has. But when that proves inadequate, she applies for a job at the mechanic's shop as well. She is not as good as her brother, but she is still better than the average resident of the city. She gets the job.

Their savings begin to pile up. They never officially buy the residence they've been staying in, but they seem to be making a personal life here, a permanent one.

The rumours slow down a bit as their presence becomes a fact.

Then the first slaves disappear.

* * *

There is no proof it is them. But rumour mills don't care about proof.

It's one of Jabba's slaves that goes missing, a new one, a pretty young human girl who'd been sold to him for pleasure and been forced to dance. She'd cried that first day in the throne room, with so many people watching, and only her "outstanding promise" kept her from being thrown to the rancor there and then.

She disappears that night. People murmur, and Jabba is not best pleased, but she is one slave. Individual people don't mean much to Jabba, so an individual slave means very little indeed. He does not send anyone to pursue the rumours.

Even when the pale green Twi'lek woman disappears, he remains silent.

And then again, when several of the Wookiee mason workers escape. (How on earth _Wookiees_ survive and escape in Tatooine's cruel climate without being seen by _anyone_ is a topic hotly debated around Anchorhead and Tosche Station, but it's beside the point of the story.)

Eventually, people do what they have always done: They blame the Skywalkers.

Jabba does not agree or heed the mood of Tatooine's freeborn population at first - indeed, none of the Hutts do. But when five more of his slaves disappear, and his _investments_ begin to dwindle, he grows angry. And as he always does, he throws a tantrum.

Someone must pay, he decides. And if it's the irritating twins who always seem to be the centre of attention without doing anything, then so be it.

He sends his goons to find and kill them. Nothing too gruesome or cruel - he doesn't want to seem excessive. It just needs to send a statement to the slave liberator out there who thought they could cross a Huttese crime lord that he is not to be messed with. He doesn't bother to send the bounty hunters either - the twins are right on his doorstep, so why bother? They are farm kids; an incensed bantha could kill them.

But his goons turn up as corpses later, dead from unerringly precise hits between their eyes. A cursory examination reveals the shots were made by a laser rifle.

 _Now_ Jabba is angry. How dare someone not die when he wanted them to! It's an outrage, a disgrace. He sends more goons, this time instructed to torture the Skywalkers a little before killing them. Defiance must be punished, and defiance of death is the worst.

But they have disappeared. And the smuggler Han Solo - who was in the area beforehand - has also disappeared.

Jabba doesn't like people disappearing on him. So he responds in the only way he knows how.

* * *

"You're trying to tell me that you two _kids_ killed two of Jabba's goons?" laughs Han Solo from the pilot's seat of the _Millennium Falcon_. "As well as freeing all those slaves? I mean, I thought you were crazy when you turned down that old fossil's offer of living in a palace on Alderaan and learning the ways of this mysterious _Force_ , but that's just straight up nuts."

Luke and Leia exchange a glance, and Chewbacca gives a mournful wail, one that more or less translates to, _You're an idiot, Solo_.

Han shuts up shortly afterwards. "Alright then, I suppose you must've," he concedes. "After all, the only human I know of whose head Jabba's slapped a bigger bounty on is. . . me." He gulps at the thought, and very quickly adds, "I don't suppose you lot wanna stick together?"

Luke and Leia look at each other again; a smile is tugging on each of their lips. "Sure," they say in unison, and if anything, this unnerves Han more than it will when he walks in on Luke practice levitating a ration bar.

"Old Ben showed me a few tricks in our brief time together," the boy explains when it happens, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"But we're going to visit Ben Kenobi first," the twins elaborate now, fixing him with their stares. One is light, and one is dark, but they feel exactly the same to the smuggler.

Belatedly, Han wonders what the hell he's gotten himself into.

* * *

Yavin 4 is hot and sweaty, but it doesn't seem to bother the Skywalker twins. The _Falcon_ lands amidst the rainforest terrain, and Han Solo now sits making awkward small talk with a bunch of hardened Rebel pilots about the manoeuvrability and general state of his ship.

He's relieved when the twins storm out again, hastily followed by an irate Obi-Wan Kenobi who seems o be arguing his case on deaf ears. Finally, Leia stops her long strides, faces him down (despite the fact she's shorter than him by far) and says something that has him snapping his mouth shut, face wounded. She walks away unhindered.

Han waits for Luke with her by the _Falcon_ , while the kid apparently greets a Rebel pilot who's an old friend of his from Tatooine. Han can't bear the angry silence, and Leia looks like she needs to go on a good long rant anyway, so he asks, "What happened in there?"

Leia sighs, looks him up and down, and apparently decides he's worth telling the story to. "Ben wants us to train as Jedi," she said bitterly. "Which neither I nor Luke is against. Apparently our power in the Force is _dangerous_ to us and everyone around us - _especially_ considering the death sentence essentially guaranteed to Force-sensitives in this galaxy."

Han nods. "So what's the problem?"

"The _problem_ is that he wants us to completely forget about Tatooine," she spits, voice suddenly hard. "He insists we'll have time to free all the slaves in the future, that we need to be trained _now_ , that an extension of the Empire's oppression can't be fully destroyed until the Empire itself is destroyed.

"But slavery was around _before_ the Empire. The Republic didn't change that, the Empire hasn't changed that, and unless something is done here and now, _nothing_ will ever change that.

"My father," she continues, quieter and softer now, "left Tatooine aged nine to become a Jedi Knight. He trained with his master, and Ben tells us that he would always think of the slaves and think, when I'm strong enough, I'm going home to free them. And here we are thirty two years later. _H_ _as he?!_ " She yells the last two words; a few people look over at them, but she seems like she needed to shout. She's calmer now.

"When does it end?" she asks, slightly forlornly. "When do people say _enough_ , I am _strong enough_ , I need to do something _now_ , or I never will?" She sighs. "I asked the Rebel Command if they would consider lending troops and funds for a slave rebellion. They said no. They, like everybody else, don't give two bantha ticks about a sun-blasted, Hutt-controlled planet in the Outer Rim.

"But Luke and I do," she whispers. "We've always wanted to escape, to fly the stars, but Tatooine is our home too. To leave it be would be like leaving the Empire be. The slaves deserve better. The _galaxy_ deserves better."

Han is stunned. " _You're_ going to orchestrate a slave uprising?"

She crosses her arms and glowers at him. "Yes."

"There's no way you can do that on your own."

She gives him a scathing look. "Are you volunteering to help? Besides," she adds. "I'm not alone. I have Luke."

Looking at her, Han feels something stir in his chest he hasn't felt since he saw an Imperial mistreat a Wookiee slave, and he did something that got him disassociated with the Empire forever. He thinks of the strangeness Leia and her brother have about them, and how much they've already survived.

He thinks about what he's seen them do since the old wizard first hired him to get them off that stinking planet, and how he thought they were either very, very stupid, or very, very desperate when the twins chose to return.

Now he knows it was neither.

"Yes," he says. "Yes, you're not alone; yes, you have Luke. And yes, I'm volunteering to help."

She gapes at him. Chewie roars at him from inside the _Falcon_ \- curse him, he didn't know he was listening - and the words sound proud. They also contain some less-than-complimentary names for Jabba the Hutt and Emperor Palpatine.

Leia seems to get over her surprise then, and grins at him. And funnily enough, that almost makes it all worth it.

* * *

The _Millennium Falcon_ flies into the spaceport at Mos Eisley the next day. Jabba is never any the wiser about who has returned to Tatooine.

* * *

The slave rebellion takes weeks to organise and months to carry out. Leia and Luke regularly report of Force dreams in which Obi-Wan or some green creature implore them to see reason and complete their training, until one day Old Ben himself walks into their base at Tosche Station.

Luke and Leia freeze up, and those freeborn residents of the planet they've swayed to their cause reach for their blasters.

But Old Ben takes a seat at the table, studies the sheaves of flimsi and datapads in front of him, and sighs. "Well, you're both reckless, you're both foolish, and you're both headstrong in your boundless hope and optimism." Luke and Leia don't breathe as he sighs again. " _Skywalkers_." He picks up a pencil and starts to sketch a line over one of their diagrams. "Now you see this plan won't work because. . ."

After that, they have Obi-Wan Kenobi on their side, albeit begrudgingly. The tides begin to turn.

* * *

There is no warning preceding the uprising. No slaves disappear, or shipments diverted, or displeased Hutts railing about how their underlings have failed them.

But one thing that does change is the steadily increasing pile of deactivated transmitters kept in a bowl in Ben's old house.

The uprising is bloody and brutal and neither side shows any mercy, but the sensible slavers flee, Jabba is killed, and the rest of the Hutts on Tatooine soon follow. Leia is confident that no Hutts on other planets will come to re-subjugate them; their previous masters are dead, and no self-respecting Hutt cares enough about another sentient to come to their aid or revenge.

There is a scramble in the ports on the planet as thousands decide to leave and make a life for themselves elsewhere, but others who have never known anything but the suns and the skies and the sands choose to stay. This is their planet, and they will treat it as such. Moisture farmers by the hundreds spring up all over the deserts, and hydroponics farmers buy their water and sell them food, and the spacers come and go as they please, and everyone lives in a symbiotic relationship for now.

Han Solo sometimes wonders how it's possible that he had a hand in all of this, but Chewie is always there to remind him that he was. And to invoke his newly awakened conscience whilst at it.

It has been far over a year since the Skywalkers stormed out of Yavin 4 with a smuggler and a Wookiee and became plotting an insane bid at righteousness. And it is a further several months before the Emperor notices something is wrong in the far, far Outer Rim, less than a parsec away from his home planet of Naboo.

He sends his least respected underlings to report at first, seeing nothing of any consequence in a scrap of dust far from the bright centre of the galaxy. Then he reads the reports of what has happened, and sends his most trusted enforcer.

* * *

Darth Vader hates Tatooine, and he is all too pleased when his master gives him the clearance to take the newly finished Death Star and destroy it.

What, exactly, a worthless Outer Rim planet has done to incur the wrath of Darth Sidious in such a way is something completely irrelevant - he can't even be bothered to wonder why Tatooine is becoming the test subject that makes this battle station operational, when Alderaan had been the intended target. So long as the smear against the galaxy is gone, he'll take any excuse.

(It doesn't matter that it's where his mother's remains lie, he tells himself. It _doesn't_.)

He almost smiles when the Death Star comes out of hyperspace and he sees Tatooine there, glowing with the power of the Force. There are Force sensitives present for him to hunt.

And, more specifically, he can sense Obi-Wan Kenobi down there.

A part of him huffs and recoils at the mere thought of having to actually set foot on the planet that will soon be (is already) bantha fodder. But he ignores it, and instead allows himself to think about how the galaxy will soon be free from its loathsome influence, how two (three, even, with that sort of Force signature, and very powerful ones at that) Jedi will soon be erased from the face of history as well.

His shuttle sets off immediately, and once it's landed he _does not_ require a moment to compose himself before stepping into the harsh light of the twin suns.

He's landed outside Mos Espa, and he wastes no time in striding off into the city. He has Jedi to hunt.

The whispers and waves of crushing fear follow in his wake once the residents of Tatooine realise who he is. Even on a pathetic Outer Rim planet like this one, his infamy is known by sentients and droids alike. It's. . . gratifying. . . to know that the Hutt masters who he once feared and revered now do the same to _him_ ; if he wanted to, he could hunt down Gardulla the Hutt and kill her, and there would be no retribution from her associates.

He does not. His master would be displeased. His master's displeasure was something to be avoided at all costs.

Two of the Force signatures he's following lurk around where he remembers his old slave quarters were, on the opposite side of Mos Espa to him. He grits his teeth and approaches, one part of his mind diligently monitoring the thoughts and feelings of the civilians around him.

Something is. . . different.

The inherent sorrow that has always been an intrinsic part of the slave quarters, ridden by generations into the floors and walls of the accommodations, is still there, but there is also. . . happiness.

Or perhaps that isn't the word to describe it; Vader, unaccustomed to dabbling in positive emotions, stops to try and decipher it. Relief. . . Love. . .

 _Hope_.

Hope, where all Vader remembers from his own boyhood here is the stifling lack thereof.

Despite himself, his curiosity mounts. What happened here?

He stops very suddenly outside a small house, belonging to two hydroponics farmers if the results of his mental probe are correct. He can sense Kenobi's presence up ahead - accompanied by the two new ones, new but so _achingly familiar_ \- and it is drenched in fear. He takes satisfaction in this, and decides to draw out the moment, so long as there is nowhere for the Jedi to run.

And if he gains answers about the frankly unsettling concentration of _light_ here (aside, of course, from the fact this planet has twice as many suns as one such as Coruscant), then that's all the better.

When he raps on the door, the occupant who answers it is too terrified to give any sort of coherent answer, and he ends up leaving in disgust. Instead he sends troops to investigate what gossip they can pick up from the locals while he hunts Kenobi; usually he considers himself above such petty news, but something - likely the Force - whispers that this is _important_.

By the time he has finished his search of Mos Espa, the entire settlement is dutifully terrified of him, but his search does not yield anything fruitful. Kenobi and the Force-sensitives - likely two padawans of his - are gone.

Upon his return to the Death Star, he is so incensed he doesn't argue when Tarkin gives a _suggestion_ \- more of a thinly veiled demand - that they fire on the planet now, and not waste time chasing shadows. (An ironic choice of words, but Vader has no appreciation for irony.) He has bigger fish to fry - he wants to get to Alderaan before long.

Vader acquiesces - not that he has any choice. Tarkin is in the Emperor's favour.

The Death Star fires on Tatooine.

* * *

Later, Vader finds himself curious and forces himself to read the report his inferiors submitted.

 _". . .successful slave uprising. . . Jabba the Hutt overthrown. . ."_

 _Oh_.

So _that_ was why his master had wanted the planet destroyed, and quickly. It might have been a threat to the Empire's slavery regimes.

Darth Vader wondered at the twinge in his gut. It felt entirely too much like regret. Maybe his suit was malfunctioning.

 _". . .orchestrated by two young people, apparently only just turned twenty. . . Luke and Leia Skywalker. . . known collectively and legendarily as the 'Skywalker twins'. . . no known living relatives, but raised by an aunt and uncle on a moisture farm near Tosche Station. . ."_

If his respirator didn't prevent it, he would stop breathing when he reads this.

Twins - he thought it was a girl and she a boy-

Luke and Leia - the names they agreed on the names he thought the baby had never had the chance to bear-

Twenty years old - it was twenty years two months ago that he had killed her-

 _Skywalker._

He doesn't need a DNA test to know what the Force is singing to him. They are his children.

His son and his daughter.

His twins.

And they had been on the planet when it was annihilated.

Darth Vader is a Dark Lord of the Sith, the scourge of the Jedi, the murderer of many sentient beings. But there are some lines that one does not cross.

Namely, killing one's children.

(Twice.)

* * *

The Skywalker twins watched the sky with terror, Han Solo and Ben Kenobi no less so, when the mysterious moon appeared.

"That's no moon," Ben said. "That's a space station. The space station you delivered the plans to the Rebels for."

It was Leia who said, "Someone needs to alert the Alliance as to where the Death Star is. Maybe they've managed to find a weakness."

Ben insisted they be the ones to go. "They're still on Yavin 4. You'll need to hurry if you want to get there in time." He gave Leia a strange look, and nodded towards the hangar bay where they all knew the _Millennium Falcon_ was docked. "You'll need a fast ship."

Luke raised his eyebrows. "I suppose we will."

Now, looking at the wreckage of their home planet left far behind, he wonders if Ben did it on purpose.

Wonders why Ben chose to die like that, rather than go down fighting, like reportedly the great Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker had.

* * *

They reach the Rebellion, and warn them. When news comes in about Alderaan, and that the Rebel Base has been found, there is a scramble. Biggs Darklighter vouches for Luke and gets him into an X-wing, and then they are flying towards that monstrosity with proton torpedoes at their fingertips. Eventually the Death Star explodes at their fingertips as well.

But when Biggs dies, the Skywalkers are all that's left of the desert planet of Tatooine.

* * *

Vader's unbeating heart restarts with sheer relief when he hears the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. _Luke Skywalker_.

His son is alive. And, hopefully, his sister.

Mustafar, Tatooine. Twice he'd almost killed them.

Maybe the third time would really be lucky.

* * *

When Luke Skywalker is lured to Bespin, his sister having foregone Jedi training for her work with the Alliance, he is only partially trained.

Nevertheless, Darth Vader is still vaguely encumbered by his resistance, and the skills he has to resist with. "Impressive," he admits, more to himself than to Luke. "Most impressive."

Leia's words from another time spring to Luke's mouth. "You'll find we're full of surprises."

They are not said with a smile, or a blithe shake of the head. They are not said by a callow youth in the desert, sun-beaten and glowing, and their listener does not understand the weight of the legacy they bear.

But they are said all the same.

* * *

Luke is still missing a hand from the duel when Leia asks him what was wrong. He does not share the news over the bond - the bond is too intimate, too scared, for him to defile it like that - but he shares it out loud, voice shaking.

Somehow, seeing Leia's distraught expression makes it all so much worse.


	7. Ghosts

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and ILDV for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: I'm so glad you liked it! I _was_ worried about the characterisation - they seemed kind of Mary Sue-ish to me, going off the sheer impossibility of the plot, so thank you!**

 **ILDV: Thank you so much! :)**

 **This chapter was literally just written because there are four generations to the Skywalkers, and it would've seemed wrong if Shmi wasn't a part of her own family story. What happens at the end to lead to the last scene is up to you - I didn't give it too much thought. I was focusing more on Shmi's introspections.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

When Shmi Skywalker dies, she does not disappear into the Force, the way that most do. She is not cut off from her family permanently - at least, not entirely. It is like she is looking through a one-way mirror: They can't see her.

But she can see them.

And she can see the horrors her son has wreaked across the galaxy.

She can see the effect her own death has on him. And she can see the precise moment his face changes.

It terrifies her more than the Sand People did. More than Watto did. More than Gardulla the Hutt did.

He reaches out and closes her eyes, tenderly, but his hands are shaking. Ani clutches her body against him, as though if he keeps holding on she might come back.

But she's never left. And she watches with something approaching despair as he rises to his feet, stalks to the entrance of the tent, and ignites his lightsaber. It's pale blue, she thinks - like the blazing Tatooine sky at the height of noon.

But it's not the height of noon, it's the middle of the night; the guards on the Tusken camp are drowsy. They're slow in turning, slow in noticing the enraged Jedi in their midst. They die for their negligence.

The screams in the camp almost drown out the angry buzz of the lightsaber as it darts through the air. It stands out harshly against the brown and yellow terrain, the beige tents, the Tuskens' pale sandy robes. Shmi finds herself watching it, mesmerised, as it dances; it's almost possible to imagine that such a beautiful thing isn't wreaking such evil deeds on a civilisation.

The last of the Tusken warriors falls beneath Anakin's assault, and he stands for a moment, breathing heavily, staring at the corpse at his feet. There is a charred black hole at the centre of its chest, and Shmi feels like her existence is being sucked into it.

 _Ani?_ She had been so happy to see him before she died. _Now I am complete._

Now. . .

 _Ani._

What is Ani doing?

What has Ani _done_?

She tries to close her eyes and look away. But she has to look, has to _see_. She doesn't miss what happens next.

Anakin steps over the warrior's corpse, and enters one of the tents, where a Tusken woman and a child are sleeping. And he kills them both before they can wake.

Shmi gasps, her hand automatically flying up to stifle the sound. But it does not matter; Ani can't hear her, and he goes on killing anyway.

He has killed them all by the time he is finished, and picks up her corpse to take the speeder back to the moisture farm.

She watches his conversation with the beautiful woman she remembers from so long ago, and is afraid for them both.

* * *

Shmi has endless time on her hands, being dead, and she uses it to reassure herself that her son is not evil. It was a moment of compulsion of human error. She is wise, and she understands how most sentient beings are prone to mistakes. She does not want to believe he is evil.

And she _doesn't_ believe he is evil.

She can see what toll the Clone Wars take on him, how being separated from his new wife hurts him. But he is a _hero_. He is _good_ and _noble_ and _the Hero With No Fear_ and one day he will go back to Tatooine to free the slaves, she knows he will.

She sees it when Padmé becomes pregnant, and even before Anakin knows, she is overjoyed. Padmé is just as happy, she can tell, but she worries that her political position and strenuous lifestyle might harm the baby. She never goes to a doctor about it, so that is what she calls it: the baby.

But somehow, Shmi knows she's carrying twins.

When Padmé tells Anakin the news, he does not lie when he says it's the happiest day of his life. And Shmi, looking at the two of them, is just as thrilled.

* * *

Shmi does not trust Chancellor Palpatine.

He is the sort of slave master who pretends to be nice, only to punish you harshly when you make a mistake. He is manipulative and cruel, and she can see him prodding at her son, poking at her son, dissecting him like the shaak steak he might eat for dinner. He intentionally draws out all the darkest parts of her Anakin, the parts she admits to being afraid of, the parts she's so desperately tried to ignore.

When Anakin confides in him one day about what happened at the Tusken camp, she wants to scream.

And she wants to scream when he goads Anakin into beheading that Sith Lord. She knows it's unnatural what the Jedi ask him to do; repressing his emotions is against the very nature of sentient life. But manipulating him into further walking down that dark path? Forcing him to embrace the evil inside him even further? Suggesting he actively seek vengeance against his oppressor?

There is something very, very wrong with the Chancellor.

Shmi can understand why her son capitulates in the end, but she does not condone it.

* * *

When Anakin suffers from the dreams again, she doesn't know what to think.

If he had dreamt of her death before it came to pass, who's to say they're not correct this time round?

But she does not like how the Chancellor seems to know about them without Anakin telling him - about the dreams, about his wife, about _anything_. She does not like how Anakin turns to him for help, and the solution is of course to further embrace the darkness. To subvert the laws of nature and reverse death.

She does not like this at all.

* * *

Shmi has never been more proud of her son than when he realises that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, and turns him in. He is resisting the pull. He is making his own destiny.

But then he thinks of Padmé. And he follows.

And he Turns.

She watches in horror as he marches on the Jedi Temple, her mind flashing back to the night she died so long ago, and his lightsaber tore through the Tuskens like flimsi.

This is so much worse.

She can't breathe as the little boy steps forwards, the terror on his face alleviated at the sight of the familiar Jedi Knight come to save them. "Master Skywalker," he says. "There are too many of them. What are we going to do?"

Anakin's 'saber is lit. And when the boy takes a half-step back, Shmi knows he understands what's about to happen.

* * *

Padmé's silver yacht breaks the atmosphere. Anakin turns to look at it, his face splitting in the closest approximation of a smile that he could in these circumstances.

She lands. The conversation goes downhill from there.

"The Jedi betrayed me. Don't you betray me too!"

He is angry.

"Anakin, you're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I can't follow."

She is afraid.

Shmi is afraid too. She has never been more terrified than when she looks behind Padmé to the ramp of her ship, to the Jedi Master standing there. Shmi never met Obi-Wan Kenobi in person, but she's seen him interact with her son. She's seen how much they mean to each other.

But then again, she's seen how much _Padmé and Anakin_ mean to each other. And that doesn't stop him from reaching out and choking her until she lies unconscious on the ground.

The two Jedi begin duelling, but Shmi cannot bear to look at it, to see two brothers become enemies. Instead she kneels next to Padmé's limp body, remembering the warmth and compassion and quiet strength of the teenager she met on Tatooine thirteen years before, and places a hand on her belly.

Padmé is still alive; she's sure of it. The babies kick under their grandmother's non-corporeal hand; they are unharmed as well.

She stays with Padmé as the fight leads away the Jedi away from the ship. She watches as the protocol droid her son built her so long ago gets Padmé on board. And when she has heard the angry cries of _"I hate you!"_ floating up from the fiery shores, Obi-Wan returns to the ship and flies away.

She follows them, having no desire to look at what her son has become.

* * *

 _What's happened to Ani?_

 _What's happened to my boy?_

* * *

The twins are born healthy, if screaming. They already know what they have lost.

Shmi doesn't understand why Padmé passes away - she has _not_ lost the will to live, as the droid suggests. She remembers being a mother, remembers the feeling of, even as a slave, having someone besides herself to fight for. Padmé wouldn't give up so easily.

But the _why_ doesn't change anything; there is no denying the fact that Padmé is dead, her children orphans.

A part of Shmi wonders if her son would return if he realised he had two living kids; it seems cruel to separate family like this. But on the other hand, her son is very close to Chancellor-turned-Emperor Palpatine, and she does not trust _him_ anywhere _near_ her grandchildren.

What's unquestionably cruel, however, is separating the twins.

Leia is sent off to two of Padmé's friends, good people Shmi doesn't know, who will undoubtably love and protect her as if she is her own.

Luke is sent home.

And because she _wants_ to go home, Shmi follows. She will not keep watching over Anakin - not when he's rejected his name, even _knowing_ what that means on Tatooine, and will likely practice nothing but evil for the foreseeable future. There is good in him, but there is evil too, and too much of it for the good to win. For now.

So she watches Owen and Beru raise Luke, and desperately hopes things will turn out okay.

* * *

Luke is a dreamer, she soon learns. He's always pestering for details about his "navigator" father, and staring at the stars, and wishing to get off the planet. He reminds her of Ani - little Ani, when he was still the child she knew.

A part of Shmi wonders if he's never truly satisfied on Tatooine because his sister, his other half, is on Alderaan.

 _Alderaan is such a long way from here._

It's what he will say to Obi-Wan - turned Ben Kenobi - one day. It's true.

* * *

Another day, however, before any more tragedy comes to pass, Luke is playing in his room on his own when he looks up at her and asks, "Who are you?"

She starts, before her mouth curves into the brightest beaming smile she's ever mustered. "I'm Shmi Skywalker," she says, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to him so he doesn't have to crane his neck to look at her.

He can see her.

Someone can _see her_.

"You're Grandma Shmi?" he asks with something like awe, his eight-year-old face alight.

"Yes, Luke," she says, raising a hand to his cheek. She's still not solid, still can't actually touch him, but for a moment she can pretend. "I'm your grandmother."

* * *

Shmi is the one who teaches him mechanics, remembering the skill with which Ani could fix anything and everything. She shows him the secrets workings of the droids, the way Ani showed her over two decades ago, and he learns quickly.

When he says to his aunt and uncle that "Grandma Shmi taught me this!" she sees her stepson shake his head and mutter something about a wild imagination, but she doesn't miss the fondness in his smile, or the twinge of grief. Beru humours Luke, listens to him chattering on about ghosts and spare parts, but Shmi doesn't think it's simply humouring him.

Knows that the Whitesun bloodline has been freeborn for far longer than the Lars one, and that Beru might have stories left over that Owen doesn't.

That maybe she believes Luke, if only because she desperately wants it to be true.

* * *

 _"Darth Vader was a pupil of mine, before he turned to evil. He betrayed and murdered your father."_

* * *

It has been years since she last manifested herself to Luke when she finally does so again, on board the _Millennium Falcon_ bound for Yavin 4. He is mourning everything he's lost when she appears.

She knows he's aware of her presence, but it is a while before he acknowledges her. He doesn't look at her as he says, "I miss Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru."

 _And Ben,_ she finishes for him. _And_ _Padmé and Anakin and me and Leia and everyone else you've lost when you shouldn't have. I'm so sorry, Luke._

Out loud, she says, "I know."

"I wish nothing had changed," he claims. "I wish we'd never bought the droids and everything was still the same."

She smiles, her heart-breaking yet again for her family, and repeats the words she once said to Anakin so long ago. "But you can't stop the change, no more than you can stop the suns from setting."

This time, it's him who replies, "I know", the words so soft she barely catches them.

There's footsteps behind her, and Shmi whirls to see Leia come through to the living quarters from the cockpit. She hasn't seen her granddaughter in so long - she's a grown young woman now, and bears more than a passing resemblance to her mother.

Leia's eyes go straight to Luke, that strange gravity between them that neither can explain blinding her momentarily to her grandmother's presence. "Are you okay, Luke?"

Her twin doesn't respond; he's still staring at something far away, into some dreamscape she could never hope to imagine. He isn't looking at her - rather, _through her_ \- but Leia follows his gaze anyway, and gives a little gasp.

"Who are you?" she whispers in wonder - the same wonder Luke showed when he first saw her as a child.

Shmi aches with indecision for a moment. Should she tell them? Should she tell them why they suddenly feel like they're whole again when in each other's presence, why they bonded so quickly and easily, why seeing the other in pain cuts them right through to the bone?

The Jedi would say no. Yoda and Obi-Wan, who'd taken control of these twins' destinies the moment they were born, would keep them in the dark about their parentage. Even now, she thinks she hears the voice of Ben Kenobi in her head - _don't do it. Don't tell them._

But they are her _family._ And she refuses to lie to them any longer.

"My name is Shmi Skywalker," she says. "And I have a story to tell you."

* * *

For the first time in years, she can speak with Anakin. He stands with her, watching as Luke and Leia burn Darth Vader's body.

"I'm so proud of them," she says, looking sideways at her son. "I am so proud of _you_." _For finding the light again,_ is what she doesn't say. _For rectifying your mistakes_.

Anakin doesn't seem to hear. His attention is riveted on his children, and she remembers the thought she had at the twins' birth: that it was a cruelty to keep them away from their father.

"My son," he whispers. "My boy."

Luke looks up briefly, and nods at them with a faint smile, before he takes him sister's hand.

"Leia," Anakin continues. "Leia, my daughter, my little girl."

She doesn't listen.

Shmi takes Anakin's hand. "She will hear you when she's ready," she promises, and as a new sunrise peers through the canopy of the forest moon of Endor, hope blooms again.


	8. Goodbyes

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I always felt like Shmi was literally just used as a plot device - she never got her own character traits or anything - and at one point I just started wondering about what she would think of her son in later years. I hope you like this chapter!**

 **This one was very difficult to structure properly, so if it's a little bit confusing that's why. I'll revisit it tomorrow morning to try and improve, but as it is I'm posting it here and now as it is.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. None of this is mine.**

* * *

Finn's dark brown eyes were wide with barely restrained panic and terror.

Maz Kanata's were narrowed in thought as she peered at him. "If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I am looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run."

* * *

"You can't just go. I won't let you!"

"Rey, I'm not who you think I am-"

"Finn, what are you talking about?"

"I'm not with the Resistance. I'm not a hero." A pause. "I'm a stormtrooper."

Neither spoke for a moment.

"Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know, and raised to do one thing. But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn't gonna kill for them. So I ran, right into you. And you looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But I'm _done_ with the First Order - I'm never going back. Rey, come with me."

"Don't go."

* * *

"Han!" Leia's voice was sharp, eyes blazing as she strode up to him. It was a wonder Hoth didn't melt. The command in her voice was even enough to stop Han Solo mid-step.

"Yes, your Highnessness?"

She glared up at him. "I thought you had decided to stay?"

Han pursed his lips. Although he was too blind - too wilful - to spot the desperacy in her brown eyes, not even he liked being subject to that glower. Nor did he want to admit that he was technically running away. "Yeah, well, that bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind." Obstinate eyes - not brown, hazel - that would one day watch a similar conversation, glared at her.

She glared right back.

* * *

"You're coming with us, aren't you, Mom?"

They were the words of a child - someone who, despite their rough life, still maintained a degree of naïveté. They were words spoken in request for reassurance, and not because the speaker actually believed it.

And Shmi Skywalker, listening, knew it. But she could not give that reassurance. Not when it wasn't true.

She knelt down, took her son's hands, and tried to make him understand. "Son, my place is here, my future is here." It always had been - Shmi was a slave, and while she'd always dreamed of freedom, she'd never believed she might one day be lucky enough to have it. "It is time for you to let go."

But Anakin Skywalker managed to learn how to let go.

When he ran off to pack his things, he didn't see the hand Qui-Gon Jinn placed on Shmi's shoulder, nor did he hear the concerned, "Will you be alright?"

Nor did he see how stricken her face was in that moment, or hear the half-hearted, "Yeah," she said in reply.

The next morning, when it was time to leave, Anakin Skywalker again looked away too soon to see his mother's brown eyes. To see how much she wanted to race after him.

To _run_.

* * *

When you separate from a loved one, it's like a piece of yourself has gone missing, and will forever be carried by the other. It marks the beginning of sleepless nights puzzling over whether you should have stayed, or followed, or refused to let your paths split; it torments you and confuses you and terrifies you when you realise you can no longer remember what precise colour their eyes were, the way they smiled. . .

Sometimes, when you have experienced far too many partings, it's like you no longer have any pieces of yourself left to lose.

* * *

"Come away with me!" Padmé was frantic. She could see the darkness inside her husband, and she could see how it would consume the galaxy if he didn't control himself in time. "Help me raise our child! Leave everything behind while we still can!"

Vader's eyes were burning - they were blue, they were a different shape, but they burned in a similar way to how his daughter's would one day, years later.

"The Jedi betrayed me, don't you betray me too!"

Padmé's brown eyes were wide, scared. Tearful. No one could deny that despite her duty, in that moment, she wanted to run.

* * *

Darth Vader's words were almost idle as he turned away, "Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen." He needed something to fill the silence - having his son _right there_ and appealing to that _blasted_ niggling of Light telling him to _let him go let him go he's your son the Emperor will kill him let him go_ was nearly unbearable. With his back to Luke, and Luke's back to him, there might as well be lightyears between them.

No such luck, though. Luke turned to face him. And somehow, he knew exactly the words that would pick at that dropped stitch in a seamless tapestry, widen that hole. "Come with me."

 _Come away with me_.

Their expressions were worlds apart, but their eyes burned the same and Padmé's likeness still clung on in her son's features and the _words_ \- they were deceptively similar.

Only this time, a loved one was not asking him to flee. They were asking him to fight.

And maybe he was sick of fighting between the Dark Side and the Light.

"Obi-Wan once thought as you do," he said, plugging the gap with hatred, memories of his former master, memories of burning alive on Mustafar. Luke may have been his son in another life, but he had been twisted against him by Obi-Wan - poisoned - defiled. The last piece of Padmé thrown onto a lowlife world and left to rot. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side. I _must_ obey my master." It was the closest he would ever come to perhaps admitting that he didn't _want_ to obey him.

"I will not Turn." So certain of himself - so confident. Vader almost believed it. "And you'll be forced to kill me."

"If that is your destiny." His voice was flat. The boy would drop this line of questioning soon enough-

"Search your feelings, Father." It was a mockery of what he'd said to Luke on that gantry in Cloud City. "You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you; let go of your hate!" Fervour burned, bright as a blue flame, but there was no fear. Of all the Skywalkers' goodbyes, this one was the only one which lacked any fear.

But Luke Skywalker had never been a great friend to fear in the first place.

Vader was tired. So very tired of all this conflict, this tangle of duty and loyalty and blood ties and love. He didn't want to fight any longer. "It is too late for me," he paused unnoticeably because addressing him, "son."

He gestured a hand sharply, before he could change his mind, and watched Luke's back stiffen, his face contort to fear as two 'troopers approached him. "The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force," he continued, looking away from that terror. The next words felt like a noose around his neck: " _He_ is your master now."

Luke was still studying him with eyes too wise for such a young face. He wasn't afraid anymore - no, in fear's place was a peculiar type of sorrow. "Then my father is truly dead," he said simply, before he allowed the stormtroopers to escort him towards the future. Not once did he look back.

Because, in the end, Luke Skywalker was not a man who wanted to run. He never had been.

* * *

"You can't just go! I won't let you!" The words were vehement, desperate, a scavenger clinging onto one of the few people who made her feel safe.

Finn avoided looked at her - he didn't want to see her eyes - the eyes of a princess, eyes of a queen - see them widened in horror the way they'd been at the table, didn't want to see how much his cowardice hurt her. "Rey, I'm not who you think I am." The words were heavy. They felt like a confession.

"Finn, what are you talking about?" Her voice was frantic, scared - and maybe that was what did it in the end: scared. She knew the truth, had known there was something off about the person who tried too hard to appear to be a confident Resistance fighter, but she had to keep thinking about how easily she'd beaten him on Jakku, how he'd taken so long to fight back-

"I'm not Resistance!" He knew it, she knew it, and yet they both flinched as the words resonated in the air. He shouldn't have lied. He _shouldn't have lied_. All she'd ever known were liars and scavengers and smugglers and thieves and now- "I'm not a hero." He swallowed; his throat was suddenly very dry. "I'm a stormtrooper."

He bit his lip, and forced himself not to close his eyes, to watch how she cringed for a moment before collecting herself.

He ploughed on. She needed to understand - he _had to make her understand_. "Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know, and raised to do one thing." _Fight. Kill. Die. Repeat._ "But my first battle, I made a _choice_." His voice was shaking - his hands were shaking. His _world_ was shaking - had been for a while now, but he'd had Rey, who'd been just as out of her depth as he was, and now. . . if he lost her. . . "I wasn't gonna kill for them.

"So I ran, right into you. And you looked at me like no one else ever had. I was ashamed of what I was." His voice hardened. "But I'm _done_ with the First Order - I am never going back." He took her hand. "Rey, _come with me_."

 _I thought you had decided to stay?_

 _You're coming with us, aren't you?_

 _Come away with me!_

 _Come with me._

 _Come with me._

Rey said, "Don't go."

* * *

Leia smiled as she watched him. "You know, no matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave."

Han shrugged. "That's why I did it."


	9. Queens

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow, Anna Skywalker 15, and Kondoru for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! Trying to get the order the scenes came in messed with my head, but I feel like it was worth it in the end. I was just watching TFA with my sister when I noticed the parallels in language throughout the films, like the difference between "Come with me" and "Come away with me", and that was primarily what it was born from :)**

 **Anna Skywalker 15: Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it; I wasn't sure about the form of it at first, but I'm happy you thought it was successful!**

 **Kondoru: Thank you for your reviews! I hope you're enjoying the story so far :)**

 **So, this chapter is set in a Padmé Lives AU, and a mild AU as far as Evaan and Leia's friendship goes (suggesting they knew each other before the events of the Princess Leia comic), and it's basically an excuse to study how** **Padmé and Anakin's relationship might be different if she survived ROTS. The chapter ends pretty much exactly where the Leia comic is due to pick up. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Evaan Verlaine frowned as she studied the woman in front of her. It was just them in the mess hall, which was odd - her companion was rarely without company - but then again, maybe not so much, considering it was the middle of the night cycle.

She'd heard a lot about Padmé Amidala. Much of it she'd learned through her own studies with Queen Breha - the Viceroy apparently knew the woman personally - but she'd also learned a lot about the ex-Queen and Senator of Naboo since she'd joined the Rebellion

One: She was still alive.

Two: She was a miracle worker with words - the paragon of a political leader - but she wasn't afraid to pick up a blaster and plunge into the melee herself. She was popular around the Rebellion and on Naboo for that very reason.

Three: She was the biological mother of Princess Leia.

This, admittedly, she'd only learned because she'd grown close to Leia when they were both living on Alderaan. When Leia was old enough, and had learned who her biological parents were, she'd naturally been equally elated and horrified. She'd needed a confidant; Evaan was all too happy to fill those shoes.

This woman, Padmé Amidala, champion for democracy, had once been married to Darth Vader.

Still _was_ technically married to Darth Vader, if an estranged marriage at least.

There were so many questions she could ask, so many enquiries ranging from _How could you?_ to _Who_ is _Vader?_ but the one that slipped out was one that had been brewing in her mind ever since she'd learned that a petite woman (who could admittedly hold her own with a blaster) had married an vengeful, angry, murderous monster like _Darth Vader_ :

"Was it healthy?"

 _Did you love him? Did he love you? Did he hurt you? Was he just as evil then as he is now? Did you have a choice in marrying him? If you did, why did you? How did he become who he is today?_

She instantly wanted to clap her hand over her mouth. That was rude. That was rude and invasive and uncalled for and Her Highness would be ashamed of her. She hastily tacked on the "Senator" honorific to the end in hopes of alleviating some of that rudeness.

But Amidala didn't seem offended. She smiled gently, and purposefully finished chewing her mouthful of rations before swallowing and answering, "I'm not Senator of Naboo anymore, Lieutenant; that's my niece's role. And I'm afraid you'll have to clarify your question."

Evaan swallowed, then debated clamming up, but that would be just as rude as continuing. And at least continuing would mean her pride (and curiosity) wouldn't suffer. "Your marriage. To Lord Vader. Was it healthy?"

For a moment, Amidala frowned. Then her brow cleared. "Oh - I know what you mean." She further mused: "You know, I don't think I've ever been asked that before." She seemed to realise Evaan was waiting for answer, then. "Yes," she assured her, shaking her head, "it was. I married him willingly, for love."

Evaan pursed her lips, and tried to fit that into her perception of the galaxy as a whole. "Forgive me for asking, my lady, but. . . how? How could a man like that-"

"Like what?" Amidala challenged. "A cyborg? A monster? A murderer? How could he ever love someone?"

Evaan nodded, slightly meekly.

Amidala sighed. "You're Leia's friend, aren't you? I assume that's how you found out."

For a moment, Evaan balked at the woman's use of "Leia" without the appropriate honorifics, before remembering: this was Leia's birth mother. Of course she wasn't supposed to be referring to her by her title. "Yes."

"Well, if Leia considers you trustworthy, I suppose I can too." She passed a hand in front of her face. "Vader was a Jedi once. Anakin Skywalker."

"Anakin. . ." The name didn't ring a bell. Not that it would, considering how heavily censored all records of the Jedi were nowadays, but it was frustrating all the same. "Vader was a Jedi? Then why did he hunt them all down? And didn't the Jedi forbid attachments?"

"They did." Amidala conceded the point with a regal dip of her chin. "And as such, our marriage had to be kept secret; he would have been expelled from the Order, and my political career would have been ruined forever. It. . . took its toll. On both of us."

"That's no excuse for hiding behind a mask and slaughtering thousands of people."

It was a wonder Amidala flinched at that; she must be used to hiding her emotions, and used to hearing _that_ sentiment in particular. "It's not. Anakin was manipulated into a situation he had no hope of controlling, but you're right: it doesn't excuse the appalling state he's left the galaxy in. And while I doubt I'll ever stop loving the image of the slave boy I met thirty years ago on Tatooine, I don't love _him_ anymore."

"I would hope not, my lady." Evaan was aware she was being snappy, snippy, intruding where she had no right to intrude, but. . . Vader was a monster!

The woman just smiled again. She really was remarkably patient. "Please, just call me Padmé."

"Yes, my- Yes, Padmé."

Padmé looked like she was avidly fighting a smile at Evaan's reactions. She didn't know whether to feel offended or relieved at that.

Then the look dropped, and the conversation started again. "I can't love the monolith he's become - a mindless supporter of the Empire. That's impossible. And looking back, I think I only ever loved the idea of him: someone who made me laugh, someone who. . . challenged me, I guess? In diplomatic beliefs, at least. We never quite saw eye to eye on matters of war and democracy. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when he finally lost all faith in the Republic." She sighed.

"It's hard to imagine, but I understand where he got his beliefs from. As a child he was in a position no child should be in. And the Republic failed him - they failed to enforce the laws they put in place, and he suffered for it. Even when he became a Jedi, and ostensibly began to fight solely for the Republic and democracy, I don't think he ever gave up that bitterness.

"Truth be told? I felt sorry for him. I saw him when he left his mother aged nine; I saw him at his mother's funeral ten years later. I saw him be consumed by his fear over me dying in childbirth - it drove him insane, practically. Everything he did, he did for me." She lowered her eyes, and Evaan could see the guilt in them, could see the way her hand rested on her flat stomach, like she might feel a baby's phantom kick.

"There were things I didn't love about him, I suppose, even then. He was, and still is, from what I've seen, obsessive and possessive. He acted with both towards me, and I. . . felt uncomfortable. He could be prone to violence, random outbursts of anger. I've never known anyone more emotionally volatile than him. It's almost laughable, the irony that he was meant to be a Jedi. Jedi were at peace, calm. Emotionless at times."

Evaan was trying to process all of this. The thought of Darth Vader as a father, as a husband, as a _human being_ with _feelings_ , was too mind-boggling to comprehend. "So, he knew you were pregnant? He knew about his daughter?"

"He knew about the babies, yes," Padmé confirmed. "Well - we both thought there'd only be one. I thought boy; he thought girl. Strange that we'd both be right."

"So why aren't you with him? Why isn't he looking for you? Why didn't he apply for custody for the child - children? - at least?" After a moment, her mind caught up with her questions. "Wait, children?"

Padmé smiled again. She really did have a very nice smile, Evaan thought. It was no wonder it had charmed so many senators, soldiers and civilians alike over the years. "Yes. I was carrying twins, Leia, as you know, was raised by Bail and Breha. Luke was sent to Tatooine to be raised by Anakin's stepbrother. I was. . . very ill, when they were first born, and I couldn't look after them. Nor did I get any choice about them getting split up." She frowned at the memory.

"Will Vader ever find out that you're all alive?" Evaan asked cautiously. "Will he ever come for you?"

For a moment, Padmé looked haunted. Her face paled, she blanched, and her hands crept up to massage the skin of her throat.

"I hope not," she whispered. "I dearly hope not."

* * *

A few months after their conversation, many things happened:

Evaan moved with the Rebellion from Dantooine to Yavin 4.

Evaan heard about the destruction of Alderaan.

Evaan cried about the destruction of her homeworld.

Evaan worried about her friend, stuck in the bowels of the Death Star. Padmé worried too, but peripherally; Evaan suspected she was making sure she was too neck-deep in work to spent much time being frantic.

Evaan watched a battered freighter with the callsign _Millennium Falcon_ swoop into the base inside the Massassi Temple.

Evaan wept with relief when her friend stepped out of it.

Evaan noticed Padmé standing on the edges of the greeting party, not just looking at Leia, but at a blond, scruffy farm boy standing with her as well.

Evaan watched Dodonna give the pilots the talk about the Death Star plans.

Evaan flew against the Death Star.

Evaan was in one of the three Alliance ships - discounting the _Falcon_ that had joined the battle at the end - and the only member of Gold Squadron to survive.

Evaan witnessed the award ceremony for a boy called Luke Skywalker, looked at Padmé's proud face, and understood.

Evaan heard about Alderaanian survivors being targeted by the Empire.

And Evaan decided to act.


	10. Tricks

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and LPK9 for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I put a lot of thought into how realistic it would be if that situation ever came to pass, and what Pa** **dmé would do if that situation ever came to pass, and I wholeheartedly believe that this is what would happen. I hope you like this chapter!**

 **LPK9: Thank you!**

 **An alternate chapter title was "Tricks of the Light", because I love puns, and you'll understand why if you read it. It's essentially about Kylo Ren and his entourage of ghosts. This chapter also has spoilers for the book Bloodline Claudia Gray, so if you're reading it/planning on reading it then avoid. It's an excellent book, and you _do not_ want to get spoiled for it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I only do this for fun.**

* * *

The hangar of the ship Kylo Ren strides past is full of stormtroopers, as expected, ready to storm on Jakku. But what isn't expected is the distinctive sense of unease and distress coming from one of them - stormtroopers are typically uniform and flat, their minds blank canvases until orders are given. Totally obedient. That any of them should be broadcasting distress is. . . unusual.

That one of them should be broadcasting distress quite so _clearly_. . . Well. There shouldn't be any Force-sensitives present - Hux and Phasma had both assured him this lot had been trained practically from birth - but if there are, Snoke would surely want to know. . .

He pauses outside the hangar, mind whirring. Which one is it? Through the window, he examines them: his eyes skip from helmet to helmet until they rest on a single trooper, standing tense and rigid, their blaster in their hands like it does not quite belong there. Kylo sends a tendril of Force out towards them. . .

Only to recoil in shock. Not because of the trooper - no; they're perfectly calm - but because _something_ just caused a conspicuous ripple in the Force. Something that feels like a person who _shouldn't_ be Force-sensitive, yet they _burn_ with _strangeness_. He turns his head. It shouldn't be possible. And yet. . .

There's a ghost staring at him from across the hangar.

She's a brunette woman, appearing to be maybe a few years younger than him, with the sort of undeniable beauty Kylo hasn't seen since whenever his last saw his- since he last saw General Organa. She stands tall and regal in a dress made of some sort of gold lace; her hair is held in two buns on either side of her head with gold mesh; her eyes are dark and large. She purses her lips at him and he finds he wants to cower.

He's never met this woman before in his life. And yet. . .

And yet. . .

(Ben's known who his maternal grandmothers are for as long as he can remember. The one more commonly talked about: Breha Organa, the last Queen of Alderaan, who died when her planet and people did. Who looks little like his mother, but she smiles the same way when she means kindness: gentle, loving, a softness that belies the steel underneath.

But he also knows about his biological grandmother, who was no less special, no less remarkable. She died younger than he is now, but she was still a heroine, still a legend: Amidala, the beloved Queen and Senator of Naboo. She led her people through the Naboo Blockade. Through the Clone Wars. She died when democracy did.

She died when Anakin Skywalker did. Her children were all that was left of her.)

He knows who this is.

Padmé Amidala - Naberrie, he remembers her birth name was, Padmé Naberrie, Darth Vader's dead wife - shakes her head at him from across the hangar. He doesn't need to wonder why.

She fought for the Old Republic, after all.

He turns away, finding himself unable to meet her eye.

* * *

"How capable are your soldiers, General?"

"I won't have you question my methods-"

"They're obviously skilled in committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army."

"My men are exceptionally trained, programmed from birth-"

"Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid. Unharmed."

He watches Hux's face change infinitesimally. "Careful, Ren, that your personal interests not interfere with orders from Leader Snoke."

He doesn't dignify that thinly veiled threat with a response. "I want that map. For your sake, I suggest you get it."

Seeing Hux swallow in fear may be the most satisfying thing he's witnessed all day.

He strides away from the General, down a corridor of the Base where few people go. He needs to contact Snoke, needs to update him on the search for the map, needs to update him on the search for his- the search for Luke Skywalker.

The last Jedi. Their greatest enemy.

He's thankful that the mask hides his emotions and feelings from all Force-blind beings, because his flinch is impossible to contain when he feels that ripple in the Force again. But he can't hide the reflex from the ghost currently standing not two metres away from him, who gives him a sage smile.

An old man this time, and one Kylo can barely recognise at that. But he does recognise him - more's the pity. He's never met this man either, but he remembers his face.

(Ben remembers how his Uncle Luke, when he visited them, would sometimes still wake up from nightmares - _We all have nightmares, sweetheart_ , his mother says, lifting him into her lap, _but we all get though them_ \- and shout " _Ben_ " into the silence of the living room. Sometimes Ben Solo hears it from his room and comes crashing down the stairs in terror, only to find his uncle up and about and apologising for waking him up.

Ben remembers his Jedi training, and asking who Luke was trained by if nearly all the Jedi were extinct. _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ , Luke says fondly, _one of the greatest men I ever knew. He lived near me as a grew up - he was a hermit on Tatooine, known as that wizard, Old Ben Kenobi._ He ruffles Ben's hair and smiles at him. _He's who you're named after._

Ben remembers studying the Clone Wars in school, and seeing holos of the Hero With No Fear, Anakin Skywalker, and his master/friend, Obi-Wan Kenobi, both of them young and brilliant and so vividly _alive_.

(They're dead. They're long dead everywhere except the holos and his uncle's memory.)

Ben remembers his mother ruefully recounting to Luke when she thinks he can't hear about all the stories of General Kenobi her father - Bail Organa - had told her, how when he'd given her the task to bring him to Alderaan the little girl still inside her had screamed in excitement. _General Kenobi, the hero!_ she laughs.

 _It's a shame you never got to meet him alive,_ Luke says sadly. _I'm sure he would've liked you._

Ben remembers his uncle having conversations with empty rooms, turning away from musings to thin air, then talking to him again like it was all perfectly normal.

Remembers how for a long time, that _was_ his "normal".)

"Ben Solo," the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi muses. "You know, you and that general bicker worse than Anakin and I used to."

Kylo jabs a finger at him. He doesn't know why; it's not like there's anything solid to jab. "That name no longer has any meaning to me," he hisses.

The words, for whatever reason, wrench a bitter laugh out of the Jedi. His eyes are so, so sad - sadder than his moth- than General Organa's on the anniversary of Alderaan.

"If you say so," the ghost obliges. There seems to be some dark humour to the words, but he disappears before Kylo can inquire as to it.

* * *

"The droid stole a freighter." He says the words slowly, enunciating them perfectly - he wants the officer to hear just how ridiculous they sound.

"Not exactly, sir." The officer takes a deep breath. "It had help." Another breath. Kylo slowly turns to look at him. "We have no confirmation but we believe FN-2187 may have helped it escape-"

The hum of his ignited lightsaber cuts off the rest of the officer's words; the man flinches, but Kylo can't allow himself to take his anger out on him. Snoke wouldn't be pleased, and he needs to hear the rest of the report. He destroys the computer terminal instead.

Long, forceful strokes, the crash of 'saber against metal, and the disjointed buzz of shorted-out circuits. The last sound reminds Kylo of the _Falcon_ , of his godfather Chewie, of _home_ -

No.

He finishes his attack with an abruptness that startles even him. "Anything else?" His voice is tight.

He can feel the officer's terror, his hesitation, but he lets it slide. The Force is telling him this is important, that he _needs to hear this_ -

"The two were accompanied by a girl."

He whirls back round to face him, his hand flying out and _yanking_ before he even thinks. The officer's grunt means nothing to him as he grips his neck, keeping him dangling off the ground, and grinds out, _"What girl."_

The officer's babblings tell him nothing - scavenger, reported to have been on Jakku for well over a decade, brown hair in three buns, carries a staff, nicknamed "Rey" - that he hasn't already guessed. Because if it's _her_. . .

He dismisses the officer. He doesn't want to hear his pitiful pleas.

He gives a long look to the destroyed computer terminal, then the crimson blades of his lightsaber shoot out again and he's slashing, hacking, _obliterating_ , revelling in this beautiful destruction-

It's a wonder that over all the noise he still hears the wizened old voice croak, "Afraid, you were, Ben Solo. Afraid and alone."

He stumbles back, losing his grip on his lightsaber. It clatters to the floor and automatically turns itself off.

He feels that ripple in the Force again but he can't turn around, can't face it, can't withstand another withering look from another long-dead being, can't fail to recognise the famously mangled grammar of the most well known Jedi Grandmaster in _history_ -

"Much fear there was in you. The truth - you were not ready for the truth. Fear turned to anger. Anger turned to hate. And now hate," there's a pause, as if the reportedly emotionless Grandmaster needs a moment to compose himself, "leads to _suffering_."

Perhaps it's a part of the punishment, knowing exactly who his undead tormentors are. Because Kylo certainly knows who this is - knows it without even turning around.

(Ben remembers walking in on his uncle telling some young Jedi initiates - he was always best with the younglings - about the "Yoda Carry", an ordinary piggyback, because apparently Grandmaster Yoda had taught Luke much of what he did from his perch on the then-adolescent's back.

Ben remembers the censorship of the old Jedi articles - especially those from the Clone Wars - slowly being lifted throughout his lifetime, until holos of Yoda and Mace Windu and Kit Fisto were easy to access on the holonet. Remembers the jokes that abounded after it slipped out that Yoda could never get the order of his sentences right.

Ben remembers the one teaching his uncle always took care to pass on: _Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering._

But Ben also remembers the more personal stories Luke told him, about Yoda being a great but hard master, being harsh and unyielding and unsympathetic to his desire to save his friends. And that's the impression that's always stayed with him.)

Kylo opens his eyes again and turns to glare at the short, gnarled green figure of a Force ghost. "Out!" he shouts. "Get out!" He batters the apparition with the Dark Side for good measure.

Like a candle, the ghost is snuffed out.

* * *

He bows his head in something akin to prayer. "Forgive me," he whispers. "I feel it again."

There's no answer - of course there's no answer; he's talking to a mask.

But he _does_ feel it, feel it tugging at his soul, sees flickers of a man's face before his eyes: strong jaw line, blue eyes (like Luke's. . .), blond hair, a scar down his face. Hear whispered words running through his mind like a blessing - like a chant.

 _Don't do this._

 _Come home._

 _You are not an evil man._

And, the strangest one of all, one he debated and puzzled and mourned over until wise Snoke reminded him they're just tricks of the light: _Don't emulate the mistakes I did._

"The call to the Light," he chokes out, and raises his head. _Don't. Please._ "The Supreme Leader senses it," he admits further, then begs, "Show me again - the power of the darkness." It was so beautiful, when he first saw it - there had really been no choice involved. "And I will let nothing stand in our way."

 _Ben. . ._

"Show me," he hesitated, "grandfather."

(Ben remembers finding out about his dark heritage, remembers the dissolution of the myth that was Anakin Skywalker's goodness. He remembers walking into a room at the Academy one day, only to find Luke not present when he'd never taken a day off before. He remembers one of the younglings finally plucking up the courage to approach him - a small girl, with big brown eyes, so similar to someone Ben couldn't think of - and hand him a datapad with the holo-clip on it.

He remembers watching that Senator from Riosa - Casterfo, his name was - stand up on stage, face pale and haunted, and declare that Ben's beloved but distant mother was the daughter of Darth Vader.

He remembers watching her face as she decided to confirm it.

Ben remembers watching the holocall she later sent him, her eyes puffy and her voice breaking, as she explained her secret and how _it was never the right time to tell you_. He remembers going to Luke to have it confirmed, and seeing his uncle's hopeless eyes. A harbinger of doom. He remembers watching that call again and again and again, his mother's face in that moment clearer to him now than her face at any other point in his childhood.

Ben remembers how many of his friends and students were extracted from the Academy. After all, who wants their offspring to be trained by a child of a Sith Lord, even if he's the last Jedi?

Ben remembers how the world tried to shun him after that. It hated him for his grandfather - it hated him for his bloodline.

 _So he used that to make him stronger._

And now he hates them right back.

Ben remembers the words that shattered everything: _Your father has become Darth Vader_.)

"And I will finish what you started," he promises.

 _I left it unfinished for a reason_ , the voice cries. He ignores it, as always.

He rises from his perch to stride out of the door, his grandfather's mask left in its twisted, defiled glory behind him.

 _Come back._

He doesn't.

 _Your mother has suffered enough. . . don't make her suffer more._

 _Come back, Ben._

 _Come back. . ._

* * *

It's days after the destruction of Starkiller Base when Kylo is finally able to breathe again - to process all that has happened.

The wound the girl gave him throbs on his face - at one point, he catches himself thinking about how very similar it is to his grandfather's, to the scar Anakin Skywalker bore in the last few years of his life.

Upon arriving on Snoke's Star Destroyer, he is first sent to Snoke himself for. . . _training._ Or perhaps a better name is _discipline_.

After hours of suffering through that, he returns to the near-Spartan rooms that have been assigned to him for the duration of his stay here. None of his personal belongings that he still deigned to keep made it off Starkiller Base, and so this is all he has: a lightsaber, a mask, and a legacy more burden than blessing.

His quarters are black and white. He feels like it's mocking him; nothing is black and white. Least of all this situation he finds himself in.

He's staggering, unstable on his feet, so he makes a beeline for the bedroom. He lifts his mask from his face with a sigh of relief.

Only when he opens the door does he acknowledge that ripple in the Force again.

He dreads looking up. He does it anyway.

Han Solo lounges on his son's bed, looking for all the world like he's as familiar and comfortable here as he is - _was_ \- on the _Millennium Falcon_. With Chewie and Luke and Leia. Only the transparency and faint blue glow give away that he is, in fact, dead.

(Ben remembers how his father never quite knew what the Force did and what it didn't. _I mean, I used to think the Force was a whole load of mumbo-jumbo,_ he would admit, _but Luke kinda forced me into believing in it. It was that or spend hours looking for the hidden strings attached to his wrists that let him yank his lightsaber out of the snow like it wasn't two metres out of reach._ He would ruffle Ben's hair then, and finish wistfully, _Eventually, everyone becomes a believer_.)

His father notices him then, and gives him a pale imitation of his old smirk. "Hey, Ben."

Kylo does _not_ scream as he rushes out of the room.

No.

He finds himself standing in the monochrome atrium again, painfully aware of the Force ghost in his bedroom. White lights blink against a black background and he - can't - think-

His mask is still lying innocuously in his hand.

He shatters it against the wall.

Again - again - again.

Until it's nothing but broken pieces of everything he'd once hoped to be.

* * *

The Resistance's flagship is right in front of his TIE fighter, and he has a perfect shot of the command centre. He could wipe out their enemies' mobile base - and most of their leadership - in a single shot. Secure a major win for the First Order.

And yet. . .

And yet. . .

He can feel his mother down there. Not General Organa, not the last Princess of Alderaan: his _mother_. She is worried and she is anxious and she is unspeakably, incredibly sad. But he knows she can feel him too.

And she is not afraid.

(Ben remembers. . .)

Ben doesn't need to remember. Because Ben never truly forgot.

His finger brushes the trigger. Does he fire? Does he cross this invisible line, and watch as everything goes to the nine Corellian hells?

There is a weight on his shoulder - like all the Force ghosts and all his loved ones and all the galaxy's living and the galaxy's dead are watching him, weighing him, awaiting his decision.

Does he shoot his mother?

His mother, whose hairstyles became increasingly subdued as she grew older? His mother, who never stopped loving democracy but watched as her faith in the system dwindled bit by bit? His mother, who never missed a holocall, who always tried to keep in touch with him even when he and Luke were training in an undisclosed location on the other side of the galaxy from her?

(He has no doubt that if he does this. . . If he does this, his mother will become just another ghost in his entourage of the regretted dead. And she'll be the most influential of them all.)

Does he do this?

And, more importantly, _can_ he?

That's a question far more easily answered.

He slides his thumb off the trigger.


	11. Mercies

**Thanks to ILDV, wavingthroughawindow, and Kondoru for reviewing.**

 **Kondoru: Yeah, the thought of what the Force ghosts must think of Ben was what inspired me to write the chapter. I hope you liked it!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I really hope Kylo doesn't actually blow up Leia's ship in TLJ as well, if only because Leia _does not deserve this shit_. It would be awful for after all she's suffered for her to be killed by her own son. I hope you like this chapter!**

 **ILDV: Thank you!**

 **This chapter was inspired by that Vader's line in ANH: "You weren't on any mercy mission this time." And then I got thinking about what other time he was referring to, and why he sounded so bitter when he was saying it. It's set in the same universe as Misbegots and Queens, and therefore has a backstory that is vague and doesn't really make any sense.**

 **Essentially, all you need to know to understand it is: Vader's sentence included providing his skill set for the New Republic when they needed it, and now he's sent into the lower levels of Coruscant on one of those "mercy missions", with Leia as an 'escort'. Awkward conversation ensues.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

The lower levels of Coruscant were, as per usual, grimy, dark and filled with clutter. Leia, used to moving through (and living in) such conditions from her time with the Alliance, didn't bat an eyelash at it - nor did her. . . _companion_. . . so much as flinch. Then again, he'd likely seen worse as well.

She sent him a surreptitious glance, clutching her glowrod tighter in her hand. An onlooker might assume than he was wearing the deep hood and swathes of thick, dark cloth to protect himself from the potentially harmful conditions found down here - the same could be said of the breathing mask attached. But Leia had the _privilege_ of knowing exactly who the person next to her was, and why, precisely, they were here.

Vader - so sorry, _Anakin_ \- was serving his sentence.

It had been an obscure and jumbled mix of events that saved her biological sire from execution. There was the fact he'd technically defected to the Rebel Alliance before the Galactic Civil War ended, ostensibly because his found out his wife and children were still alive, and therefore executing him would've been in bad taste. There was the fact that the New Republic was doing its best to adhere to its anti-Empire 'No Death Penalties' slogan. There was also the fact that he'd had both a member of High Command, a Jedi, and a sort-of-Jedi-but-more-an-Alliance-poster-boy-than-anything-else rooting for him.

Honestly, Leia would've expected this from Luke. He was optimistic to a fault.

Obi-Wan Kenobi? There she might have anticipated more scepticism, but she didn't really know the man, and the two men been best friends once upon a time - maybe lingering feelings of camaraderie were clouding his judgement.

But Senator Ami- Pad- her mother? The Rebellion Leader? She had thought she would at least be a little more practical on the matter - enough to not let herself be ruled by sentiment.

Leia knew that sounded somewhat heartless, but. . . He was a monster! A murderer, a traitor! Padmé Amidala herself had very nearly suffered fatal asphyxiation at his hands! And yet they were wasting precious resources on his treatment and the precautions required to prevent any. . . _mishaps_. . . regarding both his security and the security of the Rebellion?

Allowing her anger to take over in a rare moment of emotion, she kicked violently at a scrap of junk that had apparently been tossed down here at one point. It was covered with soot and resembled nothing more than a large grey barnacle, but when her foot connected with it the _thing_ leapt to its feet, attempted some sort of attack on the offending limb, then scuttled away.

Leia jumped back, her lips curling into a snarl. She stumbled momentarily before a hard, unyielding grip clutched her left bicep and she stiffened. For one horrifying instant there was the sense of hard durasteel round her arms, Governor Tarkin's pretentious voice drawling _you may fire when ready_ and the vibrations of the largest battle station ever seen beneath her feet as it prepared to fire-

"Let go of me." The words were a hiss - like air out of a slit tyre. The grip released her hastily.

She jerked out of it with equal haste, stumbled slightly again as she regained her balance, and shot Vader a glare as he moved to help her again. She didn't stop glowering even as she bent down to inspect her foot.

"Don't touch me," she warned Vader as she noticed him fidget in her peripheral vision. "Don't you _ever_ touch me, you piece of-"

She didn't finish the sentence; she couldn't come up with an insult bad enough. _Not_ because he didn't deserve to take it; he deserved far, far less than what he'd been given. Besides, he'd probably heard his fair share of insults as it was. . .

"Whatever you were about to say, Your Highness, I have heard worse."

She resumed glowering up at him - up, because apparently, despite the new suit they'd had made for him that was closer to the average height of Anakin Skywalker, he was still an incredibly tall man. "Don't read my mind."

She couldn't see his face with much clarity due to the hood and the breathing mask, but she got the sense that his mouth tugged into a reluctant smirk. "I assure you, Princess, that I'm not reading your mind." The words were spoken slowly; he was likely used to speaking like that to allow the vocoder to pick them up. But without the vocoder to enunciate them, they sounded thin and reedy. That didn't mean Leia missed the undercurrent of pride as he said, "Your shielding is impeccable."

She decided to ask Luke what that meant later - no way was she asking _him_.

Satisfied that the. . . _thing_. . . hadn't managed to injure her in any way, she marched onwards - petty, perhaps, since Vader was still struggling to adapt to his new prosthetics, but it wasn't like he deserved respect from her.

He didn't complain, just lengthened his own strides to match hers. Soon enough she was aware of his presence at her back once more and she was tempted to kick something again. She didn't; it had hurt the first time.

She didn't even know what she was _doing_ down here. Okay, that was a lie - she knew _exactly_ what she was doing here: Babysitting Vader. Or rather, escorting him.

Part of his greatly reduced sentence at his trial had been what constitutes to "community service": apparently his, Obi-Wan's and Luke's particular skill set was needed at the moment to clear up some of the. . . _wilder_. . . aspects of Palpatine's reign, and there were certain situations the New Republic didn't want to send their trophy Jedi into.

Namely, hunting down the rare, dangerous animals that had apparently been released into the lower levels of Coruscant.

Not that that was directly Palpatine's fault, but the criminal underworld _had_ thrived under the Empire, and it was no doubt some sort of immoral smuggler who'd gotten them onto Coruscant in the first place without realising that. . . well. They were _dangerous._

That they would end up _turning up to_ _slaughter several citizens of the galaxy before vanishing into the cesspit that was the very bowels of the city._

In theory, only one of Jedi-like skills would survive this sort of challenge. But naturally, everyone had been very opposed to sending the Master and his padawan in the literal depths of Hell, and some bright spark (General Madine, if Leia's suspicions were correct) had proposed Vader for the job.

Another of Leia's suspicions was that the person had done so in an attempt to get Vader killed, and thereby off the New Republic's hands. If this was true, then that person was surely kicking themselves the moment Mon Mothma suggested Leia be his escort. Because as much as losing Vader would increase morale for the Rebellion, losing Leia would decrease it just as much, if not more.

 _Why_ , exactly, she had to be the one to accompany him was over her head - likely one of Mon's many machinations; the woman was as socially savvy as one could get. But Leia hadn't been able to back down, not after the well-timed, sneering comment from one of their Imperial defectors that it was doubtful a princess could hold her own in a firefight.

That had lead to a few discussions that were somewhat. . . aggressive.

And in the end, Leia's pride had demanded she take on this mission. Or perhaps she hadn't done it because of what an ignorant Imperial had said to her, but simply as a way to get back out in the field again. After all, she _had_ been locked up in peace talks and negotiations ever since the Emperor's death; she needed to do something, needed to _move_ , or she'd go crazy. Besides, she'd been here before. She knew what to do.

Then again, that _particular_ experience was partially what made it so uncomfortable to be down here alongside. . . present company.

She glanced sideways again at him and swallowed harshly. She didn't want to think about last time.

However, it appeared the universe (or maybe the Force) didn't intend for her to forget about that day particularly soon, because after her foot hit a scrap of debris she hadn't previously noticed and she stumbled again, Vader commented in a tone one could almost call blithe: "You went into levels lower than this last time, did you not? How well did you fare down there?"

She shot him a glance that could have tunnelled all the way through Coruscant's duracrete cityscape and out the other side. "Yes." Her tone was clipped, but it was true: on her previous visit she'd gone lower, much lower. They were only around Level 400 at the moment; six years ago, Vader had run into her and her team on Level 237.

She hoped silence would fall again - it would make them more likely to catch these predators they were supposed to be wandering around searching for, anyway - but apparently the (former) Sith Lord wouldn't stand for that. Instead, he asked, "What was it you were doing down here again?"

"We were clearing up the community," she countered sharply. It was the story she'd given him then, and since she was a Princess of a Core World, and the daughter of an esteemed Senator, Vader hadn't been able to arrest her outright or question her any further - not without damning evidence that she was genuinely breaking the law. And she'd refused to provide _that._

She'd been an eighteen-year-old girl on one of her first missions for a Rebel cell her father wasn't directly involved in - she'd been afraid and cold and alone in a team that knew each other far better than she'd known them. Their leader - Captain Andor, she believed his name was; he'd been a member of Rogue One, hadn't he? - had been brusque and gruff, and wasn't much prone to sympathy except in extreme situations.

But he'd been a good leader, understanding enough that when Darth Vader arrived and starting questioning them, he'd let the girl who'd trained as a junior legislator in the Senate, the one with diplomatic immunity, do all the talking.

They'd escaped without injury - mostly. One of their members had been Force choked for a few moments for looking at the Dark Lord in the wrong way. But they'd ultimately kept their lives, which was more than Leia had been hoping for since the moment she heard the first rasp of that chilling respirator, even if they'd had to abandon their task.

"Ah, yes," Vader replied. She glanced at him, but he was looking straight ahead. He sounded almost amused. "Your _mercy mission_."

The specific choice of words brought Leia back to the _Tantive IV_ rocking beneath her feet, the sickening thud of Captain Antilles's body hitting the wall, a black finger wagging in her face and the rumbled words _you weren't on any mercy mission this time_.

 _This time._

This time. . .

She'd wondered about those words later, in her cell - at least, the rational part of her brain not occupied with fortifying herself against interrogation had. They had never made sense: She'd had minimal contact with Vader before being caught red-handed as a Rebel operative, and they'd certainly never been on the terms where they would discuss _mercy missions_. So why would Vader, who was generally so blunt and brutal with his speech, choose those words?

"You were referring to _that_ event, that day after Scarif?" It seemed. . . odd. . . that he'd remembered it. "That wasn't a mercy mission."

"Oh, I know perfectly well that you and your Rebel friends were attempting to find a way into the Imperial Palace via Coruscant's underbelly, Princess." Vader sounded vaguely irritated - but also smug? Leia didn't understand this man at all. "Don't think that just because I was unable to take the daughter of a well-respected noble family into custody I wasn't aware of your doings."

"Technically, you couldn't have legally done so anyway: you had no proof of your suspicions."

"Princess." Here he sighed, and seemed to take great pleasure in the action. It made Leia wonder: Had he been able to sigh before? Had his respirator let him? "You were all bruised and bloody. Mercy missions don't tend to contain violence. It was obvious, even to an imbecile, that you were not all you said you w-" He was cut off by a crashing sound from up ahead.

Leia raised her glowrod. "It appears our quarry has come to _us_."

Vader didn't bother to finish his sentence - he was instantly focused on the task at hand. "Indeed."

* * *

It was only when they'd wiped out at least two of the creatures stalking the city that they declared themselves worn out, and began the arduous trek back to the surface. Leia was finding herself too short of breath to talk much, and apparently Vader felt the same, because they were largely silent on the duration of the trip.

Just before they reached the first vestiges of civilisation, though, he looked her over, taking in the scratches and the contusions and the slight limp she'd obtained sometime during the melee.

He said dryly, "It seems I was mistaken. Perhaps mercy missions _do_ contain some modicum of violence."

Leia stifled a laugh, then wondered at the fact that she'd laughed at something he'd said.


	12. Stories

**Thanks to Kondoru, wavingthroughawindow and LPK9 for reviewing!**

 **Kondoru: Thank you! I'll be the first to say I definitely messed about with canon with that chapter, but I just wanted it to be convenient for the overall story. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I love Leia so much, and it's so sad that she could never get the relationship with Anakin that she should've been able to have. And I try not to think about the fact that Leia will probably die in the next few movies, but I agree: if she does die, it had** _ **better**_ **do her character justice. She deserves that much.**

 **LPK9: Thank you! Just the idea of having all the Skywalker clan in the same place is too much fun to pass up, and so many plot bunnies spiralled from that. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **This chapter doesn't focus on the Skywalkers as much as it does on the Naberries, and the effects that** **Padmé's** **loss had on her family. An alternate title to this chapter was "Flowers", but although I thought "Stories" fit it better, I'm not certain on that, so could you mention in the reviews which one you think is more fitting?**

 **I think this'll be the second to last chapter in this series, so I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

The night air was cold, but that didn't stop the nine year old as she ran through the streets of Theed.

Little Ryoo Naberrie was barely nine, but she wasn't stupid. And she knew exactly whose funeral she'd attended that day - understood what it meant that that beautiful, kind face was now still and passionless in a way it had never been in life.

Her auntie would never wake up and hug her and chatter in her ear _ever_ again.

But. . . she had to wake up, right? She was Aunt Padmé. Death was something that happened far, far away, on the viewscreens showing footage from battles of the Clone Wars. Mama sometimes joked that Grandpa Ruwee would die if he didn't stop eating all those sweets, but it wasn't something that would ever happen. It _definitely_ wasn't something that would ever happen to Aunt Padmé!

Papa was behind her for a little bit when she tried to run away from the long parade behind Aunt Padmé's coffin, and he caught her then and told her not to run away again, that it scared Mama. But Ryoo just waited until he fell asleep that night to sneak out because she _had_ to find Aunt Padmé! She had to wake her up!

There was so much Aunt Padmé needed to do! Mama said she went away to _Corr-uh-sant_ to make peace and settle arguments, and they needed her most of all right now! She'd seen it on the news: there was a man who Papa said was _Chan-sell-or Pal-pah-teen_ even though he looked too wrinkly to be him, and his podium had been flying above everyone else and there was a lot of shouting and arguing and clapping and Aunt Padmé needed to be here to stop them shouting!

There was no one in the streets, which Ryoo was happy for because otherwise the adults would run after her and make her go home. She didn't want to go home. She wanted to talk to Aunt Padmé.

Aunt Padmé was sleeping in a big stone room now. It was easy to slip inside it, and she found herself face to face with a large stained glass window of a woman who looked like Aunt Padmé, but not really. She looked very sad in the window, and Ryoo remembered her aunt being cheerful and happy; she would tickle her and Pooja, kiss their cheeks, play 'it' with them. In the middle of the room there was a big rock in the shape of a rectangle, about the same size Aunt Padmé had been. The sides were covered in pretty carvings of flowers.

They looked like ryoo flowers. . .

Idly, Ryoo took off the little felt bracelet on her right wrist and held it up to the stone. It was dark in here, but she could almost see how alike the carvings and the decorative flowers on her bracelet looked, with the shape of the petals and stuff. . .

She gasped as she felt a warm breeze brush past her - it smelt almost like. . .

A violent chill ran through her before she finished the thought. She dropped the bracelet, and looked around.

It was very cold in here.

She shivered, cast one backwards look at the sad woman in the window again, then ran out. She would come back and wake up Aunt Padmé tomorrow.

After all, people were supposed to sleep at night, anyway, weren't they?

She didn't stay long enough to see two moonlight-pale, transparent hands lift the bracelet from its bed in the shadows and place it atop the coffin, like a childish facsimile of a queen's crown.

* * *

In the morning, Mama and Papa didn't notice that Ryoo had snuck out last night, but Mama did notice that her bracelet was missing and ordered her to look for it. Ryoo did; she used it as an excuse to run back to Aunt Padmé.

She should be awake by now, shouldn't she?

And true, Ryoo hadn't actually _seen_ her sleeping back there, but. . . it was dark! And Aunt Padmé would be up and about, so she wouldn't need to look for her sleeping body anyway, would she?

She had to wait for a bunch of people to leave the building first, as they all seemed to want to get inside and give Aunt Padmé flowers. There was nothing strange about that; Ryoo had seen Very Important People give Aunt Padmé flowers at Very Important Events before. But all these people were crying.

Why were they crying? Why didn't they just help her wake Aunt Padmé up?

She slipped inside once they went away, and gazed in awe at the woman in the window. Now it was daytime, she could see all the pretty colours of the glass: the blue dress, the white flowers, the gold-ish yellow headdress, and she stared at it in wonder for a few moments before turning back to the stone.

Where was Aunt Padmé? And where was her bracelet?

Frowning, Ryoo stared at where she'd dropped it last night. It wasn't there! She turned round in a circle, staring. Where was it?

Something caught her eye. There! It was sitting on top of the carving - the one Mama said looked a lot like a _fleur de lis_ flower - on the top of the stone!

She stood up on tippy-toes to try and reach it, and managed to bat it onto the floor, where it rolled off somewhere. She scampered after it.

But just when her fingers touched it, she saw a silver light in the corner of her eye and she whirled, dropping her bracelet _again_.

But it didn't matter.

Because there was her auntie, standing there smiling and awake and she was back she was back she was back!

"Aunt Padmé!" Ryoo shouted, running forwards. Her bracelet was instantly forgotten. She made to throw her arms round her auntie, but they went right through her. Ryoo tumbled to the ground.

Getting up, she frowned, and peered up at the woman. She wasn't just silver, but she was transparent too. . .?

"Why-" she began, but then decided it didn't matter. She bounded to her feet again. "Aunt Padmé! You're back! Good, you need to come home right now, Mama's been really sad and you need to make it better for her! C'mon, auntie, we need you!"

Aunt Padmé knelt down in front of her, looking her straight in the eye. Ryoo's heart plummeted. Nothing good ever happened when adults did that.

And Aunt Padmé was crying, too. She had wet tears leaking down her cheeks, silver on silver; she dazzled with it.

 _A ghost_ , Ryoo realised belatedly. _Aunt Padmé's a ghost._

"Hello, Ryoo," the crying woman whispered.

* * *

Aunt Padmé was dead. Aunt Padmé was dead, but she could come back and talk to them as a ghost, even if she couldn't _man-i-fest_ anywhere except her _tomb_ \- Ryoo swallowed at the thought - at the moment.

Naturally, she ran home to tell everyone.

"Mama! Papa!" she shouted. "I saw Aunt Padmé!"

Mama burst into tears. Ryoo immediately wanted to cry too; Mama wasn't supposed to cry! She was Mama!

It was Papa who looked between them sadly, then herded her out of the kitchen with a firm hand on her shoulder and a "That's nice, dear."

* * *

Pooja Naberrie would be the first person to call her older sister a dreamer.

It had been less. . . _noticeable_. . . when they were younger. They were children after all: imagination was an expectation, even if Ryoo's had always been a little bit. . . overactive. Especially in regards to their deceased (and now censored) Aunt Padmé; eventually Ryoo had stopped talking about how she'd spoken to her ghost, after she'd realised how much any mention of her upset their mother, but she still talked about her to Pooja, in hushed, late night discussions that Pooja was only half-awake for.

Pooja had always wondered if her sister had been intentionally pulling her leg about it; it was certainly common practice for older siblings to pull the wool over their younger siblings' eyes and trick them into believing things that everyone else knew weren't true. But her thoughts always came back to one thing: the passion and fervour Ryoo had always had as she conducted the discussions. How excited she'd seemed.

Pooja had always been envious of her for it.

At first, envious because Ryoo could speak to Aunt Padmé and Pooja couldn't.

Later, envious because Ryoo had such a vivid imagination that she'd convinced herself that their Aunt Padmé was really there, wasn't gone, and because it provided a chance to escape some of the horrors the Empire dished out.

Years passed, until one day Pooja realised that she no longer believed her sister's stories - no longer sat enraptured as she recounted them, or smiled one of her secret smiles at something their aunt had said or done. Ryoo seemed to realise it too.

The storytelling stopped.

Their educations diverged. Pooja went into politics - "Like Aunt Padmé," Ryoo had commented when she'd first announced her intentions; Pooja hadn't quite been able to avoid her sister's perceptive stare, any more than she could her mother's pale face - and Ryoo went into the arts. Writing, painting, acting, filming. It didn't matter to her, so long as she was telling a story.

Pooja envied her for that freedom of expression she got, but she didn't begrudge her sister her choices. If anyone had the imagination to go far in those businesses, it was Ryoo.

But what really alarmed Pooja (and everyone else in their family) was Ryoo's frankness. She'd mastered some tact as a child, but ultimately Ryoo had always told it to you straight, never lied about what was on her mind. And when she met some people who'd believed in the tarnishing of Padmé Amidala's image. . . Well. Ryoo hadn't been too happy with that.

Pooja knew her sister understood censorship - how could she not, as a storyteller? - but she didn't understand the lengths the Empire was willing to go to silence those who preached the wrong message. Pooja, a politician, used to coaching her words and spinning them into something more amiable, feared for her sister's life. Her brashness could get her killed.

But ultimately, no. No action was taken. The Empire didn't deem the artistic niece of a long-dead adversary to be a threat.

Pooja envied her that, too.

* * *

Ryoo blinked at the woman in front of her. She was used to talking with Aunt Padmé fairly regularly, and the topics ranged wildly, it was true, but. . . This seemed a little random.

"What?" she asked again.

Padmé smiled. Ryoo could tell the difference between her smiles now - this one had a tinge of sadness to it, as well as hope, and _love_. Endless, all-encompassing love. Not just for Ryoo, or even Pooja - no, there was someone else involved here as well.

"When your sister is chosen to be the Senator of Naboo," she said slowly, meaningfully, "tell her to seek out and befriend Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. Her. . . father. . . was an old friend of mine." Her smile widened, and Ryoo thought there was the glimmer of tears in her eyes before she blinked them back. "I'm sure they'll get along splendidly."

Ryoo didn't understand it.

But she passed the message along anyway.

* * *

It was several years and many stringent Imperial decrees later that Padmé deigned to revisit. Ryoo was just packing up her painting supplies when she felt the warm, summery breeze that always alerted her to her aunt's presence. It smelled like Rominaria flowers.

Ryoo forced a smile onto her lips as she looked at her aunt. It had been a hard year, what with Imperial laws tightening tenfold and the dissolution of the Senate, but she'd be damned if she didn't treat her long dead aunt with the respect she deserved. Even if she never visited as often as she did when Ryoo was a child.

"Aunt Padmé," she greeted. Padmé smiled, but looked faintly harried, which puzzled Ryoo. How could a ghost be harried?

"I'm afraid I can't stay long, flower," she said, slipping into the age-old nickname Ryoo once bore. "And I'm not allowed to tell you much. But I can tell you this."

Ryoo crammed the questions that statement invoked - _What do you mean, 'aren't allowed'? Why can't you stay long? Who controls you?_ \- down, and instead asked, "What is it?"

Padmé had never looked quite so grave. "There is a boy, in the world," she began slowly. "Or rather, not a boy anymore. Nineteen. Young, but not _that_ young." She smiled - this one was bitter. "Not young enough to be unnoticeable." Ryoo's questions began to rise again; Padmé quelled them with, "His name is Luke Skywalker."

Ryoo's words died in her throat. "Oh." A pause. "Is he-"

"Yes." The word was whispered. "He's Anakin's son." A beat, then- "And mine."

Ryoo's heart stuttered. _But you were pregnant at your funeral. . ._

"Oh," was all she said.

"Yes," Padmé said softly. "He's my son. The twins survived my death. They were raised separated, because no one could know, but someone living _has_ to know, so I'm telling you now. Because you're the only one who can hear me, and there will come a day when everyone will know Luke's name. And someone has to know the truth."

Padmé was crying now. "He's a good boy," she whispered. "He's a good boy, and his sister - whom I cannot speak of right now, but who you'll know soon enough - is a good girl too. They're not the terrorists the media will try to paint them as."

"Terrorists," Ryoo murmured. "Sister?"

A memory resurfaced: a memory of a Princess from Alderaan, a recommendation that Pooja befriend her and a _"her father was an old friend of mine_."

"Oh," Ryoo said again, even though Padmé was already gone.

* * *

It was the next day that the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star was released, along with his astronomical bounty. And Ryoo didn't need to worry about containing her gasp of shock when the name _Luke Skywalker_ blinked up at her from the viewscreen - her mother, father, sister and grandparents gasped along with her.

"Uncle Ani. . ." Pooja breathed, diplomacy and tactical silences forgotten in the wake of the surprise.

Her mother and father exchanged looks. "You don't think. . ."

Her mother looked at Ryoo, then the screen. Ryoo did the same, where scrolling text described his crimes: succeeding in shooting at an impossible target and blowing up an armoured space station.

 _An impossible target. . ._

 _An impossible target. . ._

No one was associated with the impossible more than the Jedi were - had been.

"Yes," her mother replied, "I do."

* * *

It was announced that the insurrectionists Princess Leia Organa and Commander Luke Skywalker were twins.

Sola Naberrie cried. Jobal and Ruwee Naberrie gaped in shock. Darred Janren Naberrie seemed frozen, unable to move. They all knew what this meant.

Later that day, Pooja approached Ryoo. "What else has Aunt Padmé told you?" she asked.

* * *

The Rebellion was coming to Naboo, Padmé told Ryoo. They were coming to visit Queen Soruna, to ask for her support, and they were sending Luke and Leia as part of an envoy to do it.

This time, Padmé said it to Pooja as well. She said it to both of them at the same time - now that the truth was out, and Pooja was starting to believe it again, she could appear to her fully.

"My sister still doesn't fully believe in it," Padmé explained, "not in _this_ , or in Luke and Leia. I can't materialise in front of her until she's rearranged it into her reality."

"I'm going to ask the Queen if she can arrange a meeting with them," Pooja told the ghost. "Can I tell her the truth, or even that we suspect it's the truth?"

Padmé shrugged. "You can tell whoever you want." She smiled at Ryoo. "It's your truth now to tell."

* * *

Padmé's son had her generosity and her faith, but Uncle Ani's chin and hair and eyes. Padmé's daughter had her hair and eyes and chin, but Uncle Ani's fire and spirit and conviction.

Ryoo got déjà vu staring at them.

"Leia!" Pooja gasped the moment the pair entered the room, and then there was a whirl of laughter and hugs and glee.

Amid the chaos, Ryoo studied the boy - _no_ , she thought, remembering Padmé's words, _he's a man by now, surely_ \- standing awkwardly to the side.

He noticed her gaze, and grinned at her, offering a hand. "I'm Luke Skywalker."

She took it. "Ryoo Naberrie."

"Ryoo, this is Leia," Pooja cut in, and Leia offered her a hand. Ryoo was aware of Pooja and Luke introducing themselves to each other as well, but Ryoo found herself looking at Leia and blinking rapidly. _Shiraya's word, they look so similar._ She half expected Leia to dissolve into transparent moonlight if she looked too hard.

It was. . . unsettling. . . seeing her aunt's face so many years younger.

"What is it?" Leia asked, picking up on her pensive mood.

Ryoo shot a desperate look at Pooja, but her sister shook her head.

"Oh no, Ryoo," she laughed. " _You're_ the storyteller here. This story is _yours_."

She told it.


	13. Flames

**Thanks to LPK9, Kondoru and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **LPK9: Thank you!**

 **Kondoru: Yeah, I took a lot of artistic licence with that one. And no, I don't think** **Padmé could ever come back as a Force ghost, but it's fanfic, right? I can make it up. I just thought the idea was interesting, and ran with it.**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! Basically from the moment I found out that it was canon that** **Padmé had living relatives, I was vaguely pissed off that apparently, in canon, there's next to nothing about them. So, I decided to write a oneshot exploring it. I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :)**

 **This is the last oneshot in the series, and I feel like it's a fitting ending considering The Last Jedi comes out today. (I know it technically came out in Britain yesterday, but semantics.) And Luke may seem a bit OOC in this, i.e. pessimistic, but he did just go through a pretty traumatic experience so I figured he wouldn't be at the height of optimism right now.**

 **I hope you've liked this series, and I hope you like this last one!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

Luke grips the controls to his X-wing tightly, and doesn't let go. He reaches to key in the hyperspace coordinates before he freezes.

Where can he go? Where can he go where Leia can't find him, where Han can't find him, where Ben (Kylo. . .) and his Knights can't find him?

Because he needs to get away. He knows it. He can't-

He can't-

He can't stay.

He lets out a groan and releases the X-wing's controls. Artoo beeps a question at him, but he ignores him for a moment as he runs a hand through his hair, lets a breath hiss out between his teeth, _thinks_.

Leia would be proud, he contemplates with a wry twist to his mouth. He's actually bothering to think through something for once.

 _Leia. . ._

He can't stay and face Leia and Han, tell them what has happened to their son. What _he failed to prevent_ happening to their son. He just _can't_. Not now.

Maybe not ever.

No, he scolds himself. He'll have to work through it at one point - this _can't_ be the end - he _won't allow it to be_. Not after what they've gone through, not after Yavin and Bespin and Endor, not after the Death Star and Cloud City and the second Death Star, not after Alderaan and carbonite and familial revelations. He can't let their friendship die - he won't, unless they want nothing to do with him after this themselves, in which case. . . he'll comply.

And he can't give up on the Force either, can he? Not after everything Ben and Yoda and his father sacrificed to let him carry that legacy forward.

 _A fine job you did of that_ , he scoffs. _Look at it all now - back to ashes and dust and whispers on a rumour mill no one dares speak of. What have the Jedi accomplished, really, since the rise of the Empire?_ Nothing.

 _Nothing._

Absolutely _nothing-_

He smacks his palm against his knee, because he needs to hit _something_ , and if he hits the controls then he might accidentally hit eject or something and then where would he be, trapped as he was in orbit above a destroyed Jedi Academy hidden from the rest of the galaxy? He would die if he did.

And despite it all, he doesn't want to die.

He _doesn't want to die_.

But it doesn't matter whether or not he dies, in the long run, because in the end all he ever did for the galaxy was restart the Jedi, and he doesn't need to think anymore on how successful _that_ was. It was Leia and Han who got the shield down, Lando who blew up the second Death Star, and his father who killed the Emperor. What had he ever done except point and shoot?

And now, the only legacy he'd been truly proud of had just gone up in flames.

Up in flames. . .

 _Up in flames. . ._

He doesn't remember drifting off, but he knows he must have, because he's not in his X-wing anymore. He's standing in a dark room surrounded by people, none of whom seem to have noticed his presence.

There's a pyre at the centre of it all, for a tall man wearing Jedi robes. Luke recognises a young Obi-Wan (because he's Obi-Wan here, not Ben, as he usually is in Luke's mind) standing beside a little boy, and a teenage woman he knows to have been his mother: Padmé Amidala. Next to her is the then Chancellor Palpatine, wearing a convincing façade of grief. Luke peers at them all curiously. Why is he here?

"Always two, there are," says a familiar voice. Luke whirls round to see Yoda standing, gazing at the body of the fallen Jedi which what might have been categorised as grief in anyone else. Luke blinks once, then twice, as he finishes his sentence: "A master, and an apprentice."

A Sith, Luke realises. They've just killed a Sith, or maybe another Dark Side user. _Always two_. . .

The dark-skinned Jedi beside him - Mace Windu, Luke recognises from old, censored holos - purses his lips and picks up the line of inquiry. "But which was destroyed? The master, or the apprentice?"

 _How many were with Ben?_ he thinks. _How many did the malevolent force that Turned him poison, ruin, twist beyond recognition? We're clearly not dealing with the Sith anymore._

Before Luke can truly attempt to comprehend what it all means, he blinks and the scene dissolves into darkness and light.

The brightness hurts his eyes after being in the dark room, so he takes a moment to realise where he is - _when_ he is. He stands on a clifftop on a volcanic planet, watching a river of magma surge past him - more specifically, watching the two lightsaber-wielders duelling atop it.

His heart leaps into his throat. He knows this scene - has spoken all-too frequently with his father's ghost about it, seen the glint of regret and grief in Anakin's eye, heard the way his voice cracked and broke. He is on Mustafar.

"It's over, Anakin!" Ben - no, _Obi-Wan Kenobi_ \- shouts. "I have the high ground!"

" _You underestimate my power_." It's less a fact than a roared challenge; even from here Luke can see the burning amber of his father's eyes, the colour of the lava below his feet and the flames that had consumed his Jedi Academy, the flames that he'd burned his father's cybernetic body in on Endor-

"Don't try it." There's something begging, pleading about Obi-Wan's voice as he says it - _please don't make me kill you I don't want to kill you my brother I love you oh ANAKIN COME BACK TO ME WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS COME BACK-_

Luke's father jumps - no, _leaps_. There is a blue arc, and Luke looks away. He can still hear the screams, though, of agony and grief and heartbreak and _"I loved you!"_ and _"I hate you!"_ and then it's too much and he squeezes his eyes shut-

Only to feel the world dissolve around him again.

He sucks in a startled breath, then releases it through his nose as his eyes fly open again. And then he wishes he could close them, because not this, anything but this, Mustafar he'd imagined enough as it was but this was the root of all his nightmares and not this anything but this-

But he can't look away.

He stares, transfixed, at the smoking corpses of his aunt and uncle.

 _Fire_ , he thinks dully, _can do nothing but destroy_.

It hadn't really resonated with him until later, their deaths. Oh, it had certainly resonated on that day, yes; he'd seen his illusions and daydreams of his father dissolve before his eyes, he'd been given a promise of glory and adventure if he went traipsing after a captured princess with Ben, and then here he was, watching his dull, everyday life get blown to smithereens and drift away on the morning wind.

But it hadn't really settled in yet: Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were gone.

He'd never again wake to Uncle Owen's stern voice telling him that he'd done a shoddy job fixing the vaporators and needed to redo it.

He'd never again sit up at night listening to his aunt's stories about the Whitesun dynasty, about the Lars dynasty, and - most importantly to him - about the Skywalker dynasty, the one's she'd heard from his grandmother years and years ago.

He'd never again hear his uncle's _you can waste time with your friends once your chores are done_.

He'd never again hear his aunt's _you need to be more careful with your Skyhopper Luke you could get badly hurt one day._

It hit him in the worst times, that knowledge - he'd be tinkering with his X-wing and find a different way to arrange this and therefore it reduced the strain on that and he would want to show his uncle how he'd fixed it, how _I can be a mechanic too!_ like he'd wanted as a child, but then he'd remember. He'd be munching on some obscure food dug up from the other side of the galaxy and he'd think about how it the perfect combination of his aunt's favourite flavours, and how she should try it. . .

It never really stopped hurting, their loss.

Luke clenches his fists at the sight of the homestead burning anew; he has to look away. The wind blows his hair across his face, but it can't block the scene that's been burned into his retina for thirty years: two skeletons reaching desperately for salvation.

He feels the scene change around him but he takes comfort in the warm darkness of his shut eyes, the sharp pricks of pain in his palms where the nails dig in, the steady thump of his heart in his throat. He doesn't want to open his eyes on another scene of torment. He _doesn't_.

And so he does not. But he can still _hear_ perfectly fine, so Leia's scream of anguish penetrates every part of him. It forces his eyes to flutter open, moments before the harsh green beam fires on the unsuspecting planet, _peaceful_ planet, below.

Luke has seen an inkling of what a Death Star could do - that time at the viewport, the Emperor gloating behind him, his lightsaber right there and waiting for him to strike down this _monster_ who dared threaten his friends. But it only destroyed ships then, not entire planets.

He's never seen _that_ horror, except perhaps in his nightmares.

He sees it now.

Alderaan blows like a firework, a powder keg. Luke knows logically that there's no sound in space, but over the noise of Leia's quiet sobbing and Darth Vader's respirator he imagines he hears it, a great roaring rush followed by a silence so heavy it seems to crush all life out of the survivors.

 _What survivors?_ No one could ever survive that.

Alderaan is gone, in an explosion of fire and brimstone-

 _Fire can do nothing but destroy._

Leia is screaming, and Luke finds that he hates the Imperials around them both, hates the Grand Moff standing smirking at her pain, hates his father as he stands there doing _nothing_ -

He blinks again. He's standing among the woods of the forest moon of Endor, his father's pyre burning merrily while the debris of the Death Star is seen above, still orbiting the planet. At the time, he thought that the fire was cleansing his father, burning away his time as Vader, scourging the darkness _out_ _out out_ until his spirit could emerge light and free.

He knows now that wasn't true.

He was destroying a symbol. A monolith. The face of an Empire. He hadn't wanted his father to be associated with them any longer.

He'd wanted that threat - to Leia, to his friends, to him - _gone_. He'd wanted to protect them all from the wrath of a regime when they discovered certain bloodlines and family ties existed. Much like on the second Death Star itself, when Vader threatened Leia, and he wanted him _gone gone gone_ and his friends _safe safe safe_ and he _hacked_ and _slashed_ and _fought_ until his father lay defenceless before him, lacking a right hand.

It wasn't cleansing, that pyre. It was destroying.

As destroying as the flames that consumed his Academy, that smothered his students in their burning embrace, that scorched the synth-skin off his right hand-

Luke opens his eyes, heart hammering, to find himself still in his X-wing above the planet, Artoo beeping frantically from his position in the astromech socket. He kneads his forehead with his metal hand - it's cold against his skin, and drags him out of his stupor. He needs to-

He needs to get-

He needs to get away.

His Jedi Academy is gone and he's _failed_ , and- and he needs to get away. Because, the Jedi of old lasted for what, ten thousand years? And his lasted for less than thirty. He needs to find how they did it, how they kept going despite the galaxy's indifference to them, how they stayed alive and thriving for millennia, until the faults and flaws described to him by Yoda and Ben and his father led to their downfall - and the downfall of democracy.

He needs to find the first Jedi temple.

He knows where it is, vaguely - he found references to it some years back, some mention in a scroll or document that he'd filed away to be thought about later before finding himself too occupied with teaching to do so.

A planet covered in water, save for a few rocky archipelagos here and there.

 _Water_.

Luke makes his decision - he reaches to plug in the hyperspace coordinates. Then he hesitates.

Artoo beeps a question.

"No, it's fine, buddy," he mutters, more to himself than to the astromech. "I just-" He doesn't finish the thought.

Because he can't bring Artoo with him, can he? He needs to leave someone behind to tell the others where he is in case of ( _severe_ ) emergencies. He's not planning on disappearing forever, but if he does, then. . . Leia will need to know where to find him, if a situation becomes too dire. _Only_ if a situation becomes dire.

He thinks about that map he'd found, that he'd left in the care of the Church of the Force, on Jakku. Of Lor San Tekka.

Luke nods to himself. He'll get the map, give it to Artoo, letting Tekka keep a piece, so Leia and Han will be able to track him down if they really need to - but only if they _really need to_. And then he'll drop Artoo off on the planet of the Jedi Academy - where Leia will go first, to look for him, to see the destruction for herself - and fly away to Ahch-To. On his own.

A planet covered in water. Not fire. _Water_.

Fire can do nothing but destroy, but water. . . Luke thought it was a miracle when he lived on Tatooine, and he still does.

He keys in the coordinates.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**


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